High-profile memoirs, political books, self-help guides: top nonfiction at Frankfurt

Memoir and biography 

Look out for Ash Barty’s memoir My Dream Time (HarperCollins), which reflects on Barty’s tennis career, her family, and ‘finding the path to being the best I could be, not just as an athlete but as a person’.

Hachette is excited to pitch Ellidy Pullin’s memoir Heartstrong, which debuted at number five in its release week, and the forthcoming Inconceivable by playwright Alexandra Collier (2023), which follows Collier’s journey to be a solo mother by choice. Also from Hachette is The Girl in the Green Dress (Jeni Haynes & Georgia Blair-West), which shares how Haynes’s multiple personality disorder helped her survive a life of abuse.

From Affirm Press, Gold Digger (Tyler Mahoney) is the memoir of a third-generation gold miner, a young Australian woman working in the male-dominated world of gold mining, and Pardon My French by Rachael Mogan McIntosh is a retelling of one family’s year-long escapade in the south of France.

Sarah Malik’s Desi Girl (UQP) is a collection of memoir-style essays about coming of age and finding your feet as a second-generation Australian Muslim, while from Text, Shannon Burns’s Childhood is an ‘arresting’ memoir of a childhood spent bouncing between dysfunctional homes in impoverished suburbs, between families unwilling or unable to care for him.

Scribe will be publishing the biography Jan Morris: Life from both sides by Paul Clements; the biography is the first full account of the life of one of Britain’s best-loved writers.

Australian music producer Tony Cohen details his work with Nick Cave and his three bands, as well as other iconic musicians, in his memoir Half Deaf, Completely Mad (written with John Olson, Black Inc., 2023). Also from Black Inc. is the ‘absorbing’ and ‘hilarious’ portrait of the years cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein spent in Australia in Angus Trumble’s Helena Rubinstein: The hidden years (La Trobe University Press, 2023).

From Exisle, Goddesses in You by Christine Lister features profiles of 60 well-known women in the world against the 12 goddess archetypes to reveal how these archetypes shape the role and underlying actions and emotions of women.

Society and politics

Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is looking forward to pitching Walkley Award-winning journalist Andrew Quilty’s debut book August in Kabul, a ‘remarkable’ record of the fall of Kabul; Sub-imperial Power by Clinton Fernandes, a ‘bold and challenging interpretation of not only Australian Foreign Policy, but of the psyche of the nation itself’; David Scrimgeour’s Remote as Ever, which tells Scrimgeour’s story of working as a doctor in isolated Indigenous communities in Australia’s Western Desert in the late 1970s; and An Insider’s Plague Year by Peter Doherty.

From Penguin Random House Australia, former prime minister Julia Gillard brings us an enthralling new collection of essays dissecting misogyny 10 years on from her empowering speech. Not Now, Not Ever has contributions from Mary Beard, Cate Blanchett, Jess Hill, Brittany Higgins and many more women who discuss the history and culture of misogyny and give us tools to fight it.

Full of humour, triumph and misadventures, Robert Skinner’s collection of essays I’d Rather Not (Black Inc., 2023) is for fans of Sloane Crosley, Andrew Sean Greer, Nathan Fielder, and David Sedaris. Look out for Personal Score by First Nations writer and poet Ellen van Neerven (UQP, 2023), a ‘groundbreaking’ examination of some of the most pressing issues in sports; as well as from Scribe, Sam Wallman’s comic book on workers and unionism, Our Members Be Unlimited.

Sarah McKay’s The Baby Brain Book (Hachette, 2023) is a deep dive into the ‘remarkable reorganisation’ of mothers’ brains featuring extensive lab research and interviews with women scientists.

NewSouth is pitching Dark Winter: An insider’s guide to pandemics and biosecurity by world-leading epidemiologist and biosecurity expert Raina MacIntyre who uncovers the history of biological warfare, developments in genetic engineering and synthetic biology, and the potential for catastrophic lab accidents; and Living Democracy by Tim Hollo offers ‘bold ideas and a positive vision’ on solving our ecological, social and political crises.

Pantera Press is excited for Against Disappearance, a collection of new essays from the Liminal & Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize longlist featuring boundary-shifting essays by First Nations writers and writers of colour that query the past and envision new futures; and the forthcoming Gigorou by activist and model Sasha Serago (2023), a ‘ground breaking’ book on decolonising beauty, learning from First Nations feminine wisdom and drawing on the wisdom of our matriarchs. Meanwhile, Junkee Media co-founder Tim Duggan provides the ‘ultimate’ guide to creating, developing and recognising great ideas that will revolutionise the way you work in Killer Thinking.

The result of over 10 years of investigation into cults, Anke Richter’s Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion and control (HarperCollins) is a ‘powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath’. Also from HarperCollins is Badness by homicide detective Gary Jubelin (with Dan Box), the sequel to I Catch Killers; and Right Here, Right Now by Natalie Isaacs, who posits that ‘it is women, set to be most adversely affected by climate change, who have the will, the skills and the power in numbers to lead the way on this critical issue’.

From Spinifex Press, Cherry Smiley proposes a ‘female-centred theory of colonisation and subsequently of decolonising feminism’ in Not Sacred, Not Squaws: Indigenous feminism redefined by Cherry Smiley. Also look out for Spinifex titles: Penile Imperialism: The male sex right and women’s subornation (Sheila Jeffreys), ‘He Chose Porn over Me’: Women harmed by men who use porn (ed by Melinda Tankard Reist), and Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The case for resistance (Caitlin Roper).

History and environment

Black Inc. is excited to showcase the latest book in its ‘The Shortest History of’ series, The Shortest History of Sex by David Baker (2023), a ‘brilliantly distilled’ and ‘entertaining’ written history of sex from its evolution to its future.

Diving into the past, Bill Morris takes the reader on a journey in search of the lost southern supercontinent in The Road to Gondwana (Exisle), and Tim and Emma Flannery’s The Big Meg (Text) is the story of the largest and most mysterious predator that ever lived, the Megalodon.

Saving Lieutenant Kennedy by Brett Mason (NewSouth, 2023) is a ‘fast-paced’ book that tells the ‘incredible story of a little-known Australian who helped save the life of a future president’, while also exploring how this dramatic rescued played into the alliance between Australia and the US.

Weaving history with the environment is Saving the Reef by Rohan Lloyd (UQP) who charts the social history of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, from the relationship between First Nations peoples and colonial settlers, to the Reef ’s most portentous moment—the Save the Reef campaign launched in the 1960s.

In The Eyes of the Spider (NewSouth), James O’Hanlon takes readers to all corners of the globe (and outer space) to explore the tens of thousands of species that make spiders such fascinating creatures. Also from NewSouth is Underground Lovers: Encounters with fungi by Alison Pouliot (2023), an in-depth look at the role of Fungi in our natural world. 

Health and personal development

Affirm Press is pitching Hey You! Keep Going by popular Instagrammer Ellie Hopley, a quirky, laugh-out-loud-funny personal development title like no other featuring inspirational illustrations and words to help keep your spirits up when life goes south; and The Anxiety Reset by Georgie Collinson (2023), which includes a set of ‘invaluable’ tools for those with high-functioning anxiety, from a qualified anxiety mindset coach.

From Black Inc., The Laughter Effect by Ros Ben-Moshe (Nero) provides techniques drawn from humour and laughter therapy to tap into the lighter side of life, offering ‘a new dimension to self-care, elevating mindfulness, gratitude and self-compassion practices’, said the publisher.

Queer non-binary podcaster and personality Deni Todorovic’s inclusive self-help guide Love This For You (Pantera Press) is ‘an empowering guide full of hard-won wisdom, inviting you to unpack who you are and how to live life on your terms’. Meanwhile, in Click or Clash (PRH), Ali Walker, a human connection scientist, reveals tools for finding healthy, happy and fulfilling relationships.

Exisle Publishing’s nonfiction list leans heavy on health and personal development: The Certainty Myth (Toni Lindsay) is a balm in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty; the second edition of The Happiness Trap (Russ Harris) is an updated and expanded version of its million-copy bestselling first edition; and The Chronic Pain Couple (Karra Eloff) offers a practical path to a fulfilling relationship for couples living with one partner’s chronic pain.

Also exploring chronic pain is Paul Biegler’s Why Does it Still Hurt? (Scribe), which provides an overview of the history of pain to give a framework of understanding chronic pain.

Also from Scribe, Reclaim by Ahona Guha is a ‘ground-breaking’ book that will broaden and expand the reader’s understanding of complex trauma and abuse. Scribe will also be pitching Guha’s second book Life Skills for a Broken World (2023).

Rockpool Publishing will be spotlighting wellness books The Art of Grieving (Corinne Laan), a ‘gentle’ self-help guide offering practical self-care practices which engage with embracing and expressing grief; and From Earth (Charlotte Rasmussen), an easy step-by-step guide to creating a natural apothecary.

And finally, Kerri Sackville asks readers to embrace domestic imperfection with The Life-changing Magic of a Little Bit of Mess (HarperCollins).

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