The Peacock Detectives (Carly Nugent, Text)
Thursday, 12 April 2018
Eleven-year-old Cassie Anderson, Peacock Detective, like all great detectives, is good at noticing things. She notices the scratches in the corner of the cage when the peacocks William Shakespeare and...
The Learning Curves of Vanessa Partridge (Clare Strahan, A&U)
Thursday, 12 April 2018
Vanessa Partridge is a clever, talented and awkward teen facing her final year of high school in the midst of hormonal adolescence. She’s full of thoughts about kissing and sex...
Stone Girl (Eleni Hale, Penguin)
Thursday, 12 April 2018
Sophie grows up saddled with a missing dad and an unreliable alcoholic mother. At the tender age of 12, she finds her mother dead and blames herself. As there is...
Neverland (Margot McGovern, Random House)
Thursday, 12 April 2018
Like Alice through the looking glass, Dorothy in Oz and Wendy in Neverland, Kit Learmonth’s childhood was full of fantastical adventures: pirates, witches, fairies and battles with terrible monsters. But...
Waiting for Elijah (Kate Wild, Scribe)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
In Armidale, NSW, in 2009, 24-year-old Elijah Holcombe was shot and killed by a police officer. Elijah was described by all who knew him as a sweet, sensitive and artistic...
Traumata (Meera Atkinson, UQP)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Trauma and the events that provoke it involve a complex web of personal experience, history and society, but most books on the topic seem to sit squarely in either the...
Staying: A Memoir (Jessie Cole, Text)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Jessie Cole’s Staying is a well-written, extremely moving memoir that steers resolutely clear of stereotypes and self-pity. The ‘staying’ of the title refers to how Cole resumes control of her...
The Making of Martin Sparrow (Peter Cochrane, Viking)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Martin Sparrow is an ‘expiree’, a convict who has served his time and been granted a plot of land. When the terrible 1806 flood destroys his crops, he’s forced to...
Ironbark (Jay Carmichael, Scribe)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Ironbark brings to disturbing life three years in the life of Marcus, a young, gay country man. He has a casually supportive father, platonic girlfriends, an interest in poetry, a...
Small Wrongs (Kate Rossmanith, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Part memoir, part cultural study, Small Wrongs is a unique look into the role remorse plays in both public and private spheres. With the observational spirit of Helen Garner and...
The Way Things Should Be (Bridie Jabour, Echo)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Claudia has returned to her hometown to get married. She should be happy, but instead she feels confused and sad, and running the gauntlet of her dysfunctional family in the...
Flames (Robbie Arnott, Text)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Flames opens with a moment of transformation: ‘Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge.’ This arresting first line sets the tone...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Small Spaces (Sarah Epstein, Walker Books)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
As a child, Tash Carmody witnessed the kidnapping of Mallory Fisher. Yet nobody would believe her account of the event—that Mallory was abducted by Tash’s imaginary friend Sparrow. Nine years...
Amelia Westlake (Erin Gough, Hardie Grant Egmont)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
After her Ampersand Prize-winning debut The Flywheel, Erin Gough’s second novel has been eagerly anticipated. Amelia Westlake has been worth the wait. This is a brilliant social satire with a...
The Long Class Goodnight (Sammy J, Five Mile)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
Comedian Sammy J is a natural storyteller, and his debut children’s novel is a testament to his ability to craft an entertaining tale. This first title in a planned series...
How to Win a Nobel Prize (Barry Marshall & Lorna Hendry, illus by Bernard Caleo, Piccolo Nero)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
Ten-year-old Mary loves science, and dreams of one day winning a Nobel Prize. When her mother arranges for her to meet the Australian Nobel laureate Barry Marshall, Mary stumbles on...
Message in a Sock (Kaye Baillie, illus by Narelda Joy, MidnightSun)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
Message in a Sock is a delightful picture book based on a true exchange between an Australian soldier and a young girl in World War I. Tammy and her mother...
The Last Peach (Gus Gordon, Viking)
Thursday, 1 March 2018
Gus Gordon delights and entertains with his newest picture book, a fable about two bugs who come across the most beautiful peach they’ve ever seen. In the beginning they’re overjoyed...
The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls (Adam Cece, illus by Andrew Weldon, Text)
Wednesday, 28 February 2018
Welcome to Huggabie Falls, where, on a normal day, you might encounter mad scientists, vegetarian piranhas and a spell-slinging schoolteacher with a penchant for turning students into hippopotamuses. In a...
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...
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...
