The Wedding Forecast (Nina Kenwood, Text)
Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Nina Kenwood’s new adult romantic comedy, The Wedding Forecast, is sexy, fun and hard to put down. Kenwood, who previously wrote for young adults (It Sounded Better in My Head,...
White Noise (Raelke Grimmer, UWA Publishing)
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
White Noise is the captivating debut YA novel by Darwin-based author Raelke Grimmer. Fifteen-year-old Emma’s mum died three years ago, and she and her emergency-doctor father survive in a monotonous,...
Jilya (Tracy Westerman, UQP)
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
Jilya means ‘my child’ in Nyamal language, and it is evident on every page of her hybrid memoir/cultural study that leading psychologist and Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman is committed to...
The Degenerates (Raeden Richardson, Text)
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
The Degenerates is a bold, layered work of experimental literary fiction that follows the linked storylines of Maha, Titch and Ginny, three Melbournians who have found themselves lost in their...
Anomaly (Emma Lord, Affirm)
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Anomaly, the debut YA novel by Emma Lord, is fast-paced, compelling and confidently plotted. In 2020, Piper Manning awakens 52 days after a virus has wiped out her town—and perhaps...
Protecting Indigenous Art (Colin Golvan, MUP)
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Scepticism is probably reasonable, at first, reading a book about Indigenous art written by a non-Indigenous person. Colin Golvan, however, has earned his bona fides by working as a barrister...
Jasper Cliff (Josh Kemp, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Western Australian author Josh Kemp’s debut novel, Banjawarn, won several prestigious awards, including the Dorothy Hewett Award, a Ned Kelly Award, and a Western Australian Premier’s Prize. For his second...
Translations (Jumaana Abdu, Vintage)
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Translations is a powerful, character-driven debut novel by Jumaana Abdu. It follows young mother Aliyah and her daughter, Sakina, who leave Sydney for a property in the Northern Rivers region...
Dragonfire: 18,000 Holes in the Universe (Adam Wallace & Lisa Foley, illus James Hart, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Tee off into the surreal world of Dragonfire: 18,000 Holes in the Universe, the first book in a new graphic novel series by Adam Wallace and Lisa Foley, with imaginative...
Chae: Korean slow food for a better life (Jung Eun Chae, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Originally from Seoul, South Korea, chef Jung Eun Chae worked in the renowned Melbourne restaurant Cutler & Co before opening her cosy six-seater restaurant, Chae, in her Brunswick apartment. Her...
Bird (Courtney Collins, Hachette)
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Following the success of her first novel, The Burial, Courtney Collins’s new dual-narrative novel, Bird, centres on the titular 14-year-old girl. The story is told in alternating chapters differentiated by...
How to Break a World Record and Survive Grade Five (Carla Fitzgerald, UQP)
Tuesday, 18 June 2024
How to Break a World Record and Survive Grade Five is the new novel from Carla Fitzgerald, author of the popular middle-grade title How to Be Prime Minister and Survive...
Voyagers: Our journey into the Anthropocene (Lauren Fuge, Text)
Tuesday, 18 June 2024
The Anthropocene—the geological period dominated by humanity’s activity on the planet—is increasingly seen by scientists and academics as an era of devastation wrought by overconsumption and insatiable industrialisation. In Voyagers,...
Love Unleashed (Melanie Saward, Michael Joseph)
Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Melanie Saward’s Love Unleashed is a bingeable, warm and soulful romantic comedy. Saward (whose debut novel, Burn, was released in 2023) draws on her own experience in New York to...
Sky Country (Aunty Patsy Cameron & Lisa Kennedy, Magabala)
Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Grandmother takes her young grandchildren on a walk up a mountain in Trouwerner (Tasmania). As they walk together, Grandmother retells an ancient story of creation, sky, and the First Peoples...
Slick: Australia’s toxic relationship with Big Oil (Royce Kurmelovs, UQP)
Tuesday, 11 June 2024
As citizens of the global West, we are learning that sitting with discomfort is necessary to create change. Slick, by journalist Royce Kurmelovs (Just Money, The Death of Holden), is...
Woo Woo (Ella Baxter, A&U)
Tuesday, 4 June 2024
In Woo Woo, Ella Baxter’s raucous second novel after New Animal, art is terrible, a living spell, a parasite, a trick, and all there is. ‘Art is life,’ writes protagonist...
Six Figures While You Sleep (Kate Toon, Major Street)
Tuesday, 4 June 2024
Following the success of her first book, Six Figures in School Hours, copywriter, podcaster and self-made millionaire Kate Toon returns with Six Figures While You Sleep, a practical, no-nonsense guide to creating...
Pancakes for Plum (Rae Tan, Lothian)
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
Pancakes for Plum is a charming story about discovering what we love and following our hearts to find things that make us happy. Plum’s brothers are good at climbing and...
The Honeyeater (Jessie Tu, A&U)
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
The Honeyeater is the second novel by Jessie Tu, acclaimed author of A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing. The story centres around Fay, an academic and emerging translator who works on...
Murder in Punch Lane (Jane Sullivan, Echo)
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
Jane Sullivan’s third novel, Murder in Punch Lane, transports readers to the grizzly underbelly of 1860s Melbourne. Actress Lola Sanchez doesn’t believe her best friend, theatre star Marie, died by...
Together We Fall Apart (Sophie Matthiesson, Pantera)
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
Together We Fall Apart is the debut novel from Sophie Matthiesson, who has woven elements of her own career trajectory into the story of her fictional protagonist, Clare. We follow...
Big Time (Jordan Prosser, UQP)
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
I’m not sure what’s going on at UQP, but they seem to have developed a passion for speculative fiction, and I’m here for it. Their latest offering, Big Time, is...
All About the Brain (Gabriel Dabscheck, illus Kim Siew, Berbay)
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
Dr Gabriel Dabscheck’s All About the Brain is a fun and engaging exploration of one of the body’s most fascinating and mysterious organs. Before exploring the brain-body connection, the book...
The End and Everything Before It (Finegan Kruckemeyer, Text)
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Moving, profound and deeply layered, The End and Everything Before It is a soulful debut novel from award-winning playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer. Emma arrives in a small harbour after drifting alone on...
Lost & Found (Tim Sharp, Pantera)
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Lost & Found is the latest book by author, speaker and leader of Australia’s positive psychology movement, Dr Tim Sharp (aka ‘Dr Happy’). A self-help guide with a difference, it...
Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra (Cassy Polimeni, illus Hykie Breeze, UWAP)
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra by Cassy Polimeni (The Garden at the End of the World) is a beautifully written junior fiction story exploring themes of animal conservation, friendship...
Return to Sender (Lauren Draper, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 7 May 2024
A historical letter-writing mystery and searching for the missing ‘Adder Stone’ are two of the many compelling story arcs in this highly engaging, fast-paced contemporary YA novel. Brodie McKellon (‘The...
Jade and Emerald (Michelle See-Tho, Vintage)
Tuesday, 7 May 2024
Winner of the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize, Jade and Emerald is a portrait of what it means to grow up caught between two cultures. Lei Ling Wen is an Australian-born...
The Infant Vine (Isabella G Mead, UWAP)
Tuesday, 7 May 2024
Isabella G Mead’s debut collection, The Infant Vine, speaks to the deeply elemental nature of motherhood. In these poems, the line between what is human and what is animal becomes ever...