The Place on Dalhousie (Melina Marchetta, Viking)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Melina Marchetta writes masterfully about messy relationships, whether they are familial or romantic, and her new novel is no exception. When Rosie Gennaro meets Jimmy Hailler, the two enter into...
Unconditional Love: A Memoir of Filmmaking and Motherhood (Jocelyn Moorhouse, Text)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
When Jocelyn Moorhouse’s film Proof was released in 1991, it created excitement—here was a new Australian writer-director with a startlingly original eye. International success quickly followed, but then she disappeared...
Eight Lives (Susan Hurley, Affirm)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Former refugee David Tran has invented a wonder-drug that could transform immunology. With the first human trial about to take place, David, the new Golden Boy of Australian medical research,...
The Colonial Fantasy: Why White Australia Can’t Solve Black Problems (Sarah Maddison, A&U)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Underpinned by denial, myth-making and blame-shifting, the settler rationale is prevalent throughout Australian history, justifying the frontier wars, dispossession and the Stolen Generations. The Colonial Fantasy by Melbourne University professor...
City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Forest (Sophie Cunningham, Text)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
In this poignant and timely collection of essays, Sophie Cunningham touches on matters private and political, historical and current, beautiful and terrifying—but always coming back to her obvious adoration of...
Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics (Troy Bramston, Scribe)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Journalist and former political advisor Troy Bramston’s new biography of Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest serving prime minister, aims to refocus the historical lens. Too often Menzies is written off as...
Growing up African in Australia (ed by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Growing up African in Australia is a new anthology edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke with Ahmed Yussef and Magan Magan. The anthology is a mixture of experienced and emerging writers’...
Bologna bound
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Eleven independent publishers, 15 children's book creators and one children’s laureate will set up shop at the collective Australian stand at this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair. The publishers represented...
Awards attention for ‘Catching Teller Crow’
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina’s YA novel Catching Teller Crow (Allen & Unwin) has won a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and received a shortlisting for the Indie Book Awards. The YA...
Fremantle Press’ newest rights opportunities
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Fremantle Press specialises in books by new and emerging Western Australian writers and artists, and has a thriving children’s and YA list. Its forthcoming titles include the picture books Rodney...
What’s new at Fremantle Press
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Fremantle Press specialises in books by new and emerging Western Australian writers and artists, and has a thriving children’s and YA list. CEO Jane Fraser spoke to Think Australian about...
Multiple deals for Berbay
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Berbay Publishing has announced multiple rights deals over the past few months. The children’s publisher has sold North American and UK rights to Colours and two further board books by...
‘Pig the Grub’ tops Australian picture book bestsellers chart
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Aaron Blabey’s antihero pug is at the top of the Australian picture book bestsellers chart for January with the latest title in the ‘Pig the Pug’ series, Pig the Grub,...
Brow Books’ newest rights opportunities
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Brow Books’ newest titles include Mandy Ord’s nonfiction graphic memoir When One Person Dies The Whole World Is Over, visual artist Mary Leunig’s first book in 25 years One Good Turn, and...
What’s selling down under
Thursday, 14 February 2019
A guide to household finance has topped the bestsellers chart in Australia for the second year running, with nearly one million Australians now owning a copy of financial commentator and...
Asylum seeker wins major literary award
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Writer, journalist and Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani, currently detained on Manus Island as part of the Australian government’s offshore detention policy for asylum seekers, has won the $100,000 Victorian Prize...
Tumarkin’s prize-winning ‘Axiomatic’ sold to US
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Brow Books has sold North American and Spanish-language rights to Maria Tumarkin’s prize-winning nonfiction book Axiomatic—a ‘boundary-shifting fusion of thinking, storytelling, reportage and meditation’—to Transit Books and Editorial Minúscula, respectively....
‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Beach reads and healthy eating titles are ubiquitous on the Australian bestsellers charts in the aftermath of Christmas, and this is reflected in January’s bestsellers. Liane Moriarty’s latest novel Nine...
Baz & Benz (Heidi McKinnon, A&U)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
The titular Baz and Benz are a pair of owls: a small blue one and a larger green one. At the start of the book, they agree wholeheartedly that they...
52 Mondays (Anna Ciddor, A&U)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
52 Mondays is the latest middle-grade novel from Anna Ciddor, written in the same classic storytelling tradition as her previous work, The Family with Two Front Doors. A fictionalised account...
Ivanhoe Swift Left Home at Six (Jane Godwin, illus by A Yi, A&U)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Despite his parents’ concerns, Ivanhoe Swift leaves home at the age of six to see the world for himself. And so begins a dreamlike journey of self-discovery and gaining independence....
Catch a Falling Star (Meg McKinlay, Walker Books)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
It’s the late 1970s in rural Western Australia, and 12-year-old Frankie’s life isn’t always easy. Her mother works all the time, so Frankie looks after her very smart but not...
You Must Be Layla (Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Penguin)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Thirteen-year-old Layla has landed a scholarship at a prestigious private school where no one looks like her. She’s a creative kid who loves singing and making jewellery, but many of...
Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories (ed by Tobias Madden, Nero)
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Following the success of its predecessor Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, new anthology Underdog celebrates up-and-coming writers of Australian young adult fiction, with submissions received via an open call-out....
Hare’s Fur (Trevor Shearston, Scribe)
Friday, 1 February 2019
Russell Bass is a professional potter in his seventies, leading a quiet and solitary life in the Blue Mountains following the death of his wife. While gathering basalt for his...
Stranger Country (Monica Tan, A&U)
Friday, 1 February 2019
At first it’s hard to know how to interpret Monica Tan’s intention to discover ‘the Australia lying beyond her hometown’ and to ‘learn about Aboriginal Australia’ as she travels on...
Islands (Peggy Frew, A&U)
Friday, 1 February 2019
Peggy Frew shows her trademark flair for bringing complex domestic lives to the fore in her latest novel Islands. At first the book seems to have more in common with...
Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind (Nicola Redhouse, UQP)
Friday, 1 February 2019
Unlike the Heart is a quest to understand a mind, from the mind governing it, and offers much to appeal to different interests. Nicola Redhouse relates her troubled pregnancies and...
The Van Apfel Girls are Gone (Felicity McLean, Fourth Estate)
Friday, 1 February 2019
Felicity McLean’s debut novel The Van Apfel Girls are Gone opens with the arrival of a ghost, ‘summoned by the death rattle of Cornflakes in their box’. It is an...
Ozzie Goes to School (Jocelyn Crabb, illus by Danny Snell, Working Title)
Monday, 7 January 2019
Ozzie Goes to School is a gentle picture book about one of life’s great milestones. Ozzie loves living with his dad in their shipping container on the beach. Safe in...
