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Peripathetic: Notes on (un)belonging (Cher Tan, NewSouth)
Released May 2024
The nine essays in this collection, Peripathetic by Melbourne-based Cher Tan, use the form’s digressive capacity well. In elastic prose informed by wide reading, Tan heads down wordy, winding rabbit... Read more
Ela! Ela! (Ella Mittas, Murdoch)
Released May 2024
Ela! Ela! means 'Come! Come!', and it’s a wonderfully fitting title for this generous, delicious and personal book of Turkish-Greek recipes, photography and essays, which documents Ella Mittas’s travels to Istanbul, Alaçatı,... Read more
Human? (Ziggy Ramo, Pantera)
Released May 2024
For those familiar with the sounds of Ziggy Ramo, Human?—while his debut book—is but the latest in a collection of revolutionary literary works by the artist. Human? is Ramo’s powerful... Read more
Work Backwards (Tim Duggan, Pantera)
Released April 2024
If you’ve ever felt disenchanted by the daily grind or pondered the pointlessness of the eternal wheel of capitalism, then Work Backwards: How to design the life you want will... Read more
Deep Water (James Bradley, Hamish Hamilton)
Released April 2024
The first chapter of Deep Water is named ‘The Word for World Is Water’, a reference to science fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin’s novella The Word for World Is... Read more
Italian Coastal (Amber Guinness, T&H)
Released April 2024
Amber Guinness’s Italian Coastal: Recipes and stories from where the land meets the sea takes readers on a tour of the seven Italian regions that sit on the Tyrrhenian Sea—places... Read more
Girt by Sea: Re-imagining Australia’s security (Rebecca Strating & Joanne Wallis, La Trobe)
Released April 2024
In their thought-provoking book, Girt by Sea: Re-imagining Australia’s security, Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis challenge conventional notions of Australia’s security. This book invites readers to rethink the country’s approach... Read more
Alice™: The biggest untold story in the history of money (Stuart Kells, MUP)
Released April 2024
An Australian inventor patented the future of world finance. An Australian journalist saw what finance had become and told the world. Business and finance writer Stuart Kells (The Library: A... Read more
How to Knit a Human (Anna Jacobson, NewSouth)
Released April 2024
The contents of Anna Jacobson’s memoir How to Knit a Human are the stuff of nightmares: a young, award-winning artist and poet has a psychotic break, is involuntarily hospitalised and... Read more
Excitable Boy: Essays on risk (Dominic Gordon, Upswell)
Released April 2024
Dominic Gordon’s Excitable Boy: Essays on risk is a collection of punchy vignettes about his life growing up in Melbourne in the 1990s and early 2000s. Gordon sets out an... Read more
Unique: What autism can teach us about difference, connection and belonging (Jodi Rodgers, Hachette)
Released March 2024
Neurodiversity commentary often references the double empathy problem, the concept that (put simply) neurodivergent–neurotypical communication can be more challenging than communication between people with the same neurotype. A related concept—neurodivergent... Read more
Kin: Family in the 21st century (Marina Kamenev, NewSouth)
Released March 2024
While women’s rights over their bodies continue to be depleted in the United States, Kin: Family in the 21st century presents the history of a related struggle: the right to... Read more
Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice (Natalie Paull, Hardie Grant)
Released March 2024
Come a Saturday morning, the line for Beatrix Bakes, a cult North Melbourne café and bakery, would snake down the street. Its closure in 2022—a personal tragedy for this reviewer—even... Read more
A Secretive Century: Monte Punshon’s Australia (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, MUP)
Released June 2024
A Secretive Century by Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an illuminating biography that unveils the remarkable life of Monte Punshon, an Australian woman who lived from 1882 to 1989. From her conservative... Read more
The Great Housing Hijack (Cameron K Murray, A&U)
Released March 2024
Instead of your typical dense economics book, The Great Housing Hijack: The hoaxes and myths keeping prices high for renters and buyers in Australia uses a compelling narrative with analogies,... Read more
Some People Want to Shoot Me (Wayne Bergmann & Madelaine Dickie, Fremantle)
Released March 2024
Some People Want to Shoot Me is the straight-talking biography of Wayne Bergmann, an Indigenous land rights advocate and native title lawyer who famously took on a multinational company and... Read more
Beyond Booze (Sarah Rusbatch, Murdoch)
Released February 2024
The term ‘sober curiosity’ has been around for a few years now, but Beyond Booze: How to create a life you love, alcohol-free offers something a bit more. Author Sarah... Read more
The Intuition Toolkit (Joel Pearson, S&S)
Released February 2024
Forget the idea of intuition as a sixth sense or any of the other mysterious connotations that many gurus and self-help books have been portraying for decades. Instead, in The... Read more
Ho Jiak: A Taste of Malaysia (Junda Khoo, Hardie Grant)
Released February 2024
Ho Jiak: A taste of Malaysia by chef Junda Khoo with Nick Jordan is an exciting culinary exploration of Malaysian cuisine. The title, meaning ‘delicious’ in Hokkien—also the name of... Read more
A Thousand Wasted Sundays (Victoria Vanstone, Pantera)
Released February 2024
Since quitting alcohol in 2018, Queensland-based writer Victoria Vanstone has been sharing sobriety advice as a blogger and as co-host of the Sober Awkward podcast. Now, in her memoir, A... Read more
