Untidy Towns (Kate O’Donnell, UQP)
Monday, 24 July 2017
Seventeen-year-old Adelaide Longley has had enough. After five years of striving for success at her expensive boarding school, she’s done with trying to be the person her teachers and family...
Call of the Reed Warbler (Charles Massy, UQP)
Tuesday, 18 July 2017
Farmer and author Charles Massy has been thinking intensely about the environment and our relationship to it for most of his life. Brought up in the industrial farming tradition, with...
The Life to Come (Michelle de Kretser, A&U)
Monday, 17 July 2017
The Life to Come is Michelle de Kretser’s first novel since her Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning Questions of Travel in 2012, and it affirms her as a writer of great...
Mirror Sydney: An Atlas of Reflections (Vanessa Berry, Giramondo)
Monday, 17 July 2017
Every city has its ghost lines, those mysterious details that underpin the contemporary physicality of a place, the memories that are faded but visible to anyone with a keen eye...
Danny Blue’s Really Excellent Dream (Max Landrak, Lothian)
Monday, 17 July 2017
Max Landrak’s first children’s book is a delight. A fanciful tale of a boy who unexpectedly dreams of ‘not-blue’ in a world that consists only of blue, it functions equally...
Tintinnabula (Margo Lanagan, illus by Rovina Cai, Little Hare)
Monday, 17 July 2017
Acclaimed for her short stories and novels, Margo Lanagan’s latest creation Tintinnabula is a picture book that explores light and shade. Through a poetic narrative, the story looks at the...
The Very Noisy Baby (Alison Lester, Affirm)
Monday, 17 July 2017
Alison Lester never disappoints. She is a much-loved, award-winning author and illustrator with many successful books to her name. This delightful book is no exception. It has all the trademarks...
The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone (Jaclyn Moriarty, A&U)
Monday, 17 July 2017
As a baby, Bronte Mettlestone was left in the lobby of her Aunt Isabelle’s building by her parents, before they set off to have adventures. When she is 10, Bronte...
Tales from a Tall Forest (Shaun Micallef, illus by Jonathan Bentley, Hardie Grant Egmont)
Monday, 17 July 2017
Shaun Micallef’s first book for children takes a large dose of fairytale ingredients, flavours them with a dash of nursery rhyme and a pinch of Greek mythology, and bakes them...
Beautiful Mess (Claire Christian, Text)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Claire Christian’s 2016 Text Prize-winning book is a beautifully written YA novel that confidently navigates the murky waters of grief and male-female friendship. Chapters are voiced in turn by Ava,...
A Semi-definitive List of Worst Nightmares (Krystal Sutherland, Penguin)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
This is a touching, hilarious and relatable book for older teens about depression, anxiety, facing your fears and learning to accept help when you need it most. Seventeen-year-old Esther’s life...
Take Three Girls (Cath Crowley, Simmone Howell & Fiona Wood, Pan)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Take Three Girls is a novel about friendship, written by friends. The voices of Cath Crowley, Simmone Howell and Fiona Wood blend seamlessly to create a narrative about three girls...
Mr Bambuckle’s Remarkables (Tim Harris, illus by James Hart, Random House)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
The students of 12B aren’t quite sure what to make of their new teacher, Mr Bambuckle: he rides a unicycle, his cousin is an Icelandic rock star, and he keeps...
Pea Pod Lullaby (Glenda Millard, illus by Stephen Michael King, A&U)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
I had read this text before, when it was included as a double-page spread in The Hush Treasure Book anthology, also illustrated by King. I loved it then and I...
Ponk! (Edwina Wyatt, illus by Christopher Nielsen, Little Hare)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Ponk is a little bird who lives at the top of a very tall tree. From on high, Ponk can see The Hill and the strange beasts dancing and swaying...
The Scared Book (Debra Tidball, illus by Kim Siew, Lothian)
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
The Scared Book is, as its title suggests, about a frightened book that’s been infiltrated by a variety of monsters on its pages and begs for help from the reader...
The Museum of Words (Georgia Blain, Scribe)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
The Museum of Words, written as Georgia Blain knew she was dying of brain cancer, will be posthumously published. Her instinct, to the end, was to find meaning by writing...
Wish You Were Here (Sheridan Jobbins, Affirm)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Driving solo along the great American highways in a Chevy Camaro, Sheridan Jobbins is not only a feminist role model, she embodies proof of life after heartbreak. Following her marriage...
Terra Nullius (Claire G Coleman, Hachette)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Part science-fiction and part old Western, Terra Nullius is an ambitious debut by the winner of the 2016 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship, Claire G Coleman. Jacky is a ‘Native’ who...
The Choke (Sofie Laguna, A&U)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Sofie Laguna is a writer who can wrench beauty even from the horror of a child caught up in the toxic world of bastardised masculinity. Fearsome, vivid and raw, her...
City of Crows (Chris Womersley, Picador)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
It’s quite a change of setting from 1980s Melbourne in Chris Womersley’s previous novel Cairo to the world of magic and witchcraft in 17th-century France in City of Crows. It’s...
The Book of Dirt (Bram Presser, Text)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Three books in one, The Book of Dirt is a remarkable tale of Holocaust survival, love and genealogical sleuthing by a grandson intent on finding the truth about his grandparents’...
A Naga Odyssey: Visier’s Long Way Home (Visier Sanyu with Richard Broome, Monash University Publishing)
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Nagaland is hill country straddling the region where India, China and Myanmar meet. Co-author Visier Sanyü’s family were living a fulfilling traditional life there in the village of Khonoma until...
Because of You (Pip Harry, UQP)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Tiny is homeless. Nola has everything she could ask for. They meet when Nola is forced into volunteer work for the writers’ group at the homeless shelter where Tiny is...
The Dream Walker (Victoria Carless, Hachette)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
In her debut novel, Victoria Carless explores isolation, hope and grief through the surreal and distortive lens of dreams. Sixteen-year-old Lucy Hart feels lost in the isolated fishing village of...
The Vampire Knife: The Witching Hours Book One (Jack Henseleit, Hardie Grant Egmont)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
As a bookseller, recommending horror for the middle-grade fiction crowd is a difficult balancing act: not scary enough and the kids will switch off; too scary and the adults will protest. Thankfully the publication of The Vampire...
Musical Markus: Super Moopers Book One (Fiona Harris, illus by Scott Edgar, Five Mile)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Markus is a Mooper who loves to sing loudly and constantly! Unfortunately, most of the Moopers in Moopertown find this, well, annoying. Poor Markus. Who wouldn’t feel sorry for him...
I Just Ate My Friend (Heidi McKinnon, A&U)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Making friends can be hard but keeping them can be even harder. Especially if you’ve just eaten your friend, like the nameless monster in Heidi McKinnon’s debut picture book. The...
The Build-up Season (Megan Jacobson, Penguin)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Megan Jacobson’s The Build-up Season is a confronting but compelling exploration of domestic violence and the legacies of abuse, set against the gathering storm clouds in the ‘build-up’ to Darwin’s...
Sparrow (Scot Gardner, A&U)
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Scot Gardner’s latest YA novel is a story of survival in both the wilderness and the city. Leaping from an exploding boat into crocodile-infested waters, the boy who never speaks...
