Gleaner March 2024 by Gleebooks

Gleaner February-March 2024

Extract Anne Manne: The struggle for justice in Crimes of the Cross p5 Q&A Dr Joëlle Gergis on remaining optimistic in the face of the climate crisis p14

Shop Talk

From David’s Desk

elcome to our first 2024 Gleaner, now in its bi-monthly format, and full, we trust, of interesting news and reviews. And welcome, of course, to the latest chapter in the Gleebooks story. The reopening of our freshly renovated and refurbished Glebe bookshop arrives just shy of our 50th year (we opened in 1975). We are boldly stepping into a bright future with a (we think) beautiful shop, complete with lift, cafe/bar and fab events space. Please come and check it out and tell us what you think. Join us on Saturday 9 March, when we will officially celebrate our opening. Subscribe to the gleemail newsletter, or check our website for more details. In the meantime, can I commend two upcoming celebrations of writing. The first you know about: Sydney Writers’ Festival is on from 20-26 May. The program announcement is coming next month, but I’ve seen a preview list and it’s outstanding. And please check out the program for the inaugural Manly Writers’ Festival. It’s taking place just off the Corso in Manly from 14-16 March. Apart from famous locals Tom Keneally and Julia Baird, you will discover some great new talent. Not picking out favourites, but Miranda Darling, Nick McKenzie, and Mirandi Riwoe will be great. It’s been a while between newsletters, so here’s a quick summary of what I’ve just read and would recommend to get 2024 off to a well-read start:

OFFICIAL STORE REOPENING

Saturday 9 March Our wonderful, newly refurbished Glebe shop is now fully accessible and has a brand new events space and a cafe/bar to relax in, meet friends and savour the written word. Join us at our official reopening for kids’ events in the morning and a celebratory drink in the evening.

INSTORE LITERARY EVENTS ARE BACK

Come and hear your favourite authors in our sleek new events space, as we kick off our 2024 program. Here are just a few of the “don’t miss” events coming up. See the website for a full program. Jodi Rodgers – Unique Thursday 14 March 6pm for 6.30pm Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo – My Father’s Shadow In conversation with Sara Dowse Thursday 21 March, 6pm for 6.30pm Gail Jones – One Another Wednesday 27 March, 6pm for 6.30pm Nam Le (pictured) – 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem In conversation with Sara Saleh Monday 8 April, 6pm for 6.30pm Anne Manne – Crimes of the Cross In conversation with David Marr Monday 29 April, 6pm for 6.30pm

Gleebooks Gleaner

Gail Jones – One Another This is beautifully written. Jones has again (as in Salonika Burning) explored literary history, this time to counterpoint insightful sketches from the life of Joseph Conrad against a narrative of a young scholar’s life in 1990s Cambridge. A brilliant blend of the real and imagined. Come and hear Gail talk about One Another upstairs@gleebooks on 27 March. Rose Tremain – Absolutely & Forever This will sneak up on you, as Tremain can do. A 1950s coming-of-age novel, not a word wasted, and showing deceptive depth. Miranda Darling – Thunderhead (out April) A stunning debut from a Sydney writer; sharp, clever, blackly comic and seriously engaging. Ceridwen Dovey – Only the Astronauts (out May) Wow, Dovey transforms the universe in the way she transformed nature with Only the Animals. This is an astonishing collection of stories from human-made objects trapped in space. Amazing imagination and insight. George Eliot – Middlemarch What can I say. It was time (each decade or so in my reading life) to revisit the novel which says and does it all. 900+ pages of densely presented 19th-century life, and not a word wasted, in my opinion. One of the greatest novels in any language. – David Gaunt, Director

UPCOMING BOOK LAUNCHES

Michelle Ford – Turning the Tide Thursday 7 March, 6pm for 6.30 Launched by Tracy Stockwell (née Caulkins) Jamelle Wells – Outback Court Reporter Launched by Liz Hayes Monday 11 March 6pm for 6.30pm Nikos Athanasou – Late Hybrids Launched by Vrasidas Karalis Tuesday 19 March 6pm for 6.30pm Neroli Colvin – Rurality, Diversity and Schooling Saturday 23 March 3.30pm for 4pm Our shop literary events are $12 and $9 concession (pensioner/student) and free to members of our Gleeclub rewards program. Bookings are essential for free and ticketed events. Book online at www.gleebooks.com.au/events or phone 9660 2333.

Fiction AUSTRALIAN FICTION

To the River

One Another

The Kelly family has always been trouble. When a fire in a remote caravan community kills nine people, including 17-year-old Sabine Kelly’s mother and sister, Sabine confesses to the murders. Shortly after, she escapes custody and disappears. Recently made redundant from marriage, motherhood and her career, journalist Rachel Weirdermann has long suspected Sabine made her way back to the river – now, 12 years later, she has the time to corner a fugitive and land the story of the year. This is a compulsively readable psychological thriller about class, corruption, love, loyalty, and the vindication of truth and justice.

At the University of Cambridge, in the summer of 1992, Australian student Helen is completing her thesis on Joseph Conrad. But she is distracted by the destructive tendencies of a charming and dangerous lover, Justin, and by a ghost manuscript, her anti-thesis, which she has left on a train. The drama of the lost manuscript sets in motion a series of events with possibly fatal consequences. Elegantly written, deftly crafted, One Another covers new territories of grief, memory and narrative.

Vikki Wakefield

Gail Jones

$34.99, Text. Out February

Like Fire-Hearted Suns Melanie Joosten

$34.99, Text. Out February

When 17-year-old Beatrice Taylor stumbles across the offices of the Women’s Social and Political Union, she realises her future may not be the one she wants. Meanwhile her friend Catherine Dawson remains focused on a career in science. Ida Bennett, recently promoted to head wardress of DX wing at Holloway Prison, has her suffragette inmates refusing to be treated like criminals. Like Fire-Hearted Suns is the story of three women whose lives become entwined in aid of showing how much things have changed for women, and how much they stay the same.

Compassion

What Happened to Nina?

Compassion is the dramatised life story of one of Julie Janson’s ancestors who was put on trial for stealing livestock in New South Wales. This gripping fictive account of Aboriginal life in the 1800s follows the life of Duringah, AKA Nell James, the outlaw daughter of the Darug hero of Janson’s Benevolence, Muraging. Compassion continues Janson’s emotional and intense literary exploration of the complex and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in colonial New South Wales, forming a counter narrative to colonial history in Australian literature.

Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family’s cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home. Simon’s explanation about what happened in their last hours together doesn’t add up. Nina’s parents push the police for answers, and Simon’s parents rush to protect him. Soon, facts are lost in a swirl of accusation and counter-accusation. Outgunned by Simon’s wealthy family, Nina’s parents recognise that it’s time to break some rules.

$34.99, Ultimo. Out March

Dervla McTiernan

Julie Janson

Magabala, $34.99. Out March

$34.99, Harper Collins. Out now

Always Will Be Mykaela Saunders

$32.99, UQP. Out February

Each of the stories in Always Will Be is set in its own future version of the Tweed. Mykaela Saunders imagines different scenarios for how the local Goori community might reassert sovereignty – reclaiming country, exerting full self-determination, or incorporating nonIndigenous people into the social fabric – while practising creative, ancestrally approved ways of living with changing climates. Always Will Be is the epic ground-breaking winner of the 2022 David Unaipon Award.

We All Lived in Bondi Then Georgia Blain

A sister is haunted by the consequences of a simple mistake. A daughter searches for certainty as her mother’s memory fades. An encounter at a house party changes the course of a life. In We All Lived in Bondi Then, beloved Australian author Georgia Blain returns to her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death. These nine stories, written in Blain’s final years, grapple with big questions on a human scale and are brimming with her trademark acuity, nuance, and warmth. $29.99, Scribe. Out now

February-March 2024

Fiction AUSTRALIAN FICTION

Kind of, Sort of, Maybe ... But Probably Not Imbi Neeme

Librarian Phoebe Cotton lives with misophonia. The sound of other people crunching an apple, slurping their tea or snapping chewing gum fills her with a rage that she buries deep within. Phoebe has hidden herself away inside her grandmother’s home, but when she begins receiving curious postcards, she slowly finds herself being pulled back into the world and towards Monty, the sweet postal clerk. Suze, a university student who is grappling with a neglectful lover, is thrown into the orbit of the pair, and the mysterious missives. This is a charming uplifting tale of acceptance, strength and love. $34.99, Viking. Out now

What I Would Do to You

The Next Big Thing

Georgia Harper

James Colley

The death penalty is back. But if the family of Lucy, a 10-year-old child that was murdered, wants the perpetrator to die, they have to do it themselves. Twenty-four hours alone in a room with the condemned. No cameras. No microphones. Just whatever punishment they decide befits the crime. As the execution date nears, already-struggling sister Stella remains adamant that she must carry out the punishment, but if she steps into that room, the family may lose her too. What I Would Do to You is the gripping debut novel from Georgia Harper.

Norm has lived in Norman his whole life. But the town is dying – the river has dried up, and with it all the jobs. One night at the pub Norm announces he’s going to build a Big Thing like Coffs Harbour’s Big Banana to drive tourism to the town. And to show his best friend Ella that she could have a future there. Ella encourages him – if it works, Norm will have a four-metre-high reminder of her after she leaves for the big smoke. And if not, at least they’ll have one last perfect summer together. Part young-love rom-com, part David and Goliath story, The Next Big Thing is a heartwarming, hilarious, quintessentially Australian debut. $32.99, Pantera. Out now

Appreciation

$34.99, Vintage Australia. Out March

Liam Pieper

Thanks for Having Me

Oli Darling is a queer artist from the country. His art has brought him fame, money, substance abuse issues and only a little imposter syndrome. But then he goes on live TV and says the one thing that can get a rich white guy cancelled. With his reputation in tatters, Oli will need to restore his public image by doing the most undignified thing imaginable – he will have to write a memoir. Appreciation is a wild romp through Australian celebrity culture that’s as bold and scathing as it is hilarious.

Emma Darragh

Mary Anne is painfully aware that she’s not a good wife and not a good mother. One morning, she walks out of the family home in Wollongong. Wounded by her mother’s abandonment, adolescent Vivian searches for meaning everywhere: true crime, boys’ bedrooms, Dolly magazine, a six-pack of beer. But when Vivian grows up and finds herself unhappily married, she too sees no choice but to start over. Emma Darragh’s unflinching, tender and darkly funny debut explores what we give to our families and what we take from them – whether we mean to or not. $32.99, JOAN. Out February

Gleebooks Gleaner

$34.99, Hamish Hamilton. Out March

Lead Us Not Abbey Lay

On the precipice of freedom, two young women seize nights out and a school retreat as opportunities to further their own increasingly uncertain ends. Olive urges Millie on in her sexual encounters, but Millie is only becoming more consumed by Olive. Then Olive cuts off all contact. Millie cannot understand what’s changed between them. Has she missed something? Or was their friendship, for Olive, just another performance? This is an emotionally charged novel of expectation, compulsion and desire. $34.99, Viking. Out March

Extract

Crimes of the Cross For many years, Newcastle was the centre of an extensive paedophile network run by members of the Anglican church – and protected by parishioners and community members who looked the other way. Here is an extract from Anne Manne’s gripping new book, in which she draws on extensive research and interviews with survivors, clergy, police to reveal how this network was able to avoid detection for so long, and how its ringleaders were finally exposed and brought to justice. At the centre of the story is a survivor, Steve Smith, who endured years of childhood abuse but refused to be silenced.

ne day in 2009, Steve, by now back in Newcastle and very depressed, heard a knock on his front door. “I said, ‘Who are you?’ And he said, ‘Michael Elliott. I’ve just been appointed professional standards director of the Anglican Church.’” Elliott was a plain-looking man with a serious face. It was angular, even gaunt, with deep crevices lining his cheeks. His eyes were deep-set under heavy brows, but their expression was surprisingly soft. He spoke quietly. Elliott came inside and held out a heavy volume for Steve to consider. It was the 1975 Register of Service for Gateshead parish, which had provided an alibi for Father George Parker in Parker’s 2001 trial for sexually assaulting Steve. Elliot had been examining old cases. “He’d apparently gone into the [archives], and this thing was sitting in my file. He couldn’t work out why it was there.” Steve grabbed the book and leafed through it. Ever since the trial, he had wanted to examine this register containing Parker’s supposed alibi. Elliott asked him what its significance was. “I said, ‘Here’s three or four hundred entries without alteration, but on these pages, there’s two entries that are altered, and that’s the entries in relation to my matter. They’re not even in order of date, they’ve been added … No one even noticed that.’” Elliott looked and he said, ‘Jeez, yeah. Look: that date’s out of order, and this is crossed out. This is wrong.’” Steve had long suspected there was something wrong with the register, which had been so suddenly produced at the trial. He had even written to the bishop about it, casting doubt on its veracity. But he had never been able to examine it, until now. He spotted the irregularities immediately. Elliott was incredulous. “Do you mean the trial fell over on the basis of this?” “Yep.” “Wasn’t it examined and cross-examined by the lawyers for the DPP? Did the judge look at it?” “Nope.” Elliott could hardly believe it. But he got it. Straight away. From that point, Michael Elliott and Steve became good mates. Elliott was a former policeman and was not an Anglican. For the first time, someone with a forensic cast of mind, unclouded by church loyalty and with an understanding of the law, was in charge of investigating sexual misconduct by Anglican priests.

As a former police officer, he had no problem recognising paedophilia as a crime, not a minor misdemeanour, or in recognising what the clerical collar might conceal. For Steve, after Elliott’s arrival, everything changed. “Michael was the first ally I’d ever had.” They formed a productive alliance. Elliott was working alone without any staff, and he would often ask Steve to help him find information. Steve spent hours going through microfiche in the library, finding information on priests. He had by now amassed a huge knowledge of offenders in Newcastle and those who had protected them. He proved to be a natural sleuth. Elliott found the church’s files on sexual misconduct alarmingly sketchy. Many were incomplete, with pages missing. But gradually, thanks to more survivors coming forward, Elliott started to map out those who were, in police language, “persons of interest”. His files kept growing and growing. So did his awareness of how these crimes had been covered up. What he discovered was a culture of denial and a web of deceit and self-deception. All sympathy in this culture gravitated to the accused priest. There had been an extraordinary lack of empathy for the victims of child sexual abuse – a trivialising of what the experience meant for the child. The culture in the church had been to assume survivors were lying or to ask, “Why don’t they move on?” Elliott, in contrast, saw things not from the point of view of the perpetrator or the institution but from the point of view of the survivor. He was like a hand grenade thrown into a vicar’s garden party. For Steve, the work was empowering. He had swapped the role of powerless victim for someone who had agency. He was now the pursuer, the investigator, coming after the perpetrators. And he was good at it. Elliott was piecing together an astonishing subterranean culture of sexual transgression involving children, committed by networks that had been unchallenged for a long time. Abusers had been put in positions of power on committees investigating sexual misconduct, keeping the whole sick culture going.

‘He was like a hand grenade thrown into a vicar’s garden party’

Anne Manne is an Australian writer, essayist and social philosopher. Her books include Motherhood, So This Is Life, The Life of I and a Quarterly Essay, Love and Money: The Family and the Free Market. Anne will discuss Crimes of the Cross (Black Inc, $36.95, out now) in conversation with David Marr, at Gleebooks on 29 April.

February-March 2024

Fiction INTERNATIONAL FICTION

Free Therapy

Burma Sahib

Rebecca Ivory

Paul Theroux

Free Therapy takes us into the inner lives of women and men who are versed in the language of therapy, possessed with the self-knowledge needed to change their lives, but find themselves unwilling to do so. As her various characters try and fail to connect, Rebecca Ivory explores desire in all its forms, revealing the softness and insecurities that lie beneath. Perfectly observed, wry and illuminated by moments of sympathy and wisdom, Free Therapy shows us ourselves as we truly are.

Eric Blair stood out among his fellow police trainees in 1920s Burma. After five years spent in the narrow colonial world of the Raj, a decaying system steeped in overt racism and petty class conflict, he would emerge as the George Orwell we know. In this fascinating, atmospheric novel, Paul Theroux brings Orwell’s Burma years to radiant life, tracing the development of the young man’s consciousness as he confronts social, racial, and class politics. Throughout Burma Sahib, we come to understand how the “five boring years within the sound of bugles”, were in fact the years that made him. $34.99, Hamish Hamilton. Out February

$34.99, Jonathan Cape. Out March

Mona of the Manor

My Heavenly Favourite

Armistead Maupin

Lucas Rijneveld

In the tempestuous summer of 2005, a 14-year-old farmer’s daughter makes friends with the local veterinarian who looks after her father’s cows. He has reached “the biblical age of seven times seven” and is trying to escape trauma, while she is trying to escape into a world of fantasy. Their obsessive reliance on each other’s stories builds into a terrifying trap that threatens to rip their small Dutch community apart. With its literary sleight and magnifying glass on human instinct, My Heavenly Favourite establishes Rijneveld as one of the bravest and most brilliant writers in the world.

$34.99, DoubleDay. Out February

When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa, she never imagined she would be the sole owner of Easley House, a romantic country manor in the UK. Now, Mona has opened Easley’s doors to paying guests to keep her inherited English manor afloat. As they welcome a married American couple to Easley, Mona discovers their new guests’ terrible secret, forcing her to use her considerable charm to set things right. Armistead Maupin returns to the characters of his iconic Tales of the City series in this glittering and addictive comedy of manners.

The Hunter Tana French

$34.99, Viking. Out March

$32.99, Faber. Out now

Cal Hooper was a Chicago detective, until he moved to the West of Ireland looking for peace. He has found it, in his relationship with local woman Lena, and the bond he has formed with half-wild teenager Trey. So when two men, including Trey’s father, turn up with a money-making scheme to find gold, Cal gets ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey. But Trey doesn’t want protection. What she wants is revenge. Crackling with tension, The Hunter from Tana French explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.

Island in the Sun Katie Fforde

When Cass is asked by her father to take on an unusual photography project on the Caribbean Island of Dominica, she really can’t see a reason to say no. But the remote island has just been hit by a severe hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake. Cass is travelling with Ranulph who is searching for the rare stone carvings her father wants her to photograph. Their hunt leads Cass down a path of bravery and self-discovery, as she falls for Ranulph, who has been by her side every step of the way. But does he feel the same way about her? This is a tale of friendship, courage and romance from bestselling author Katie Fforde. $34.99, Century. Out now

Gleebooks Gleaner

Fiction INTERNATIONAL FICTION

The Revenge Club

Tell

Best friends Matilda, Penny, Cressida and Jo are approaching their sixties with flair until, one by one, their bubbles are burst. Matilda, a bestselling novelist, is dropped by her publisher; Penny is cut from her prime-time TV show; Cressida’s acting agent can only offer her female incontinence ads and Jo realised it’s still a man’s world a while ago. Confronted by a society that believes they’re all past their amuse-by dates, the friends vow to face their non-entity crises together. A subversive, irreverent revenge romp from the wickedly witty mind of Kathy Lette.

Tell is a probing and compelling examination of the ways in which we make stories of our own lives and of other people’s. Jonathan Buckley’s novel is structured as a series of interview transcripts with a woman who worked as a gardener for a wealthy businessman and an art collector who has mysteriously disappeared. The joint winner of the Novel Prize, Tell is a work of strange and intoxicating immediacy that explores money, art and industry, the intimacy and distance between social classes, and the complex fluidity of memory.

Kathy Lette

$32.99, Aria. Out February

This Plague of Souls

Jaded

Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland for the first time in years, only to be greeted by an empty house, as if the world had forgotten that he even existed. The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know about his recent bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. Part Roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls is a story for these fractured times.

Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend. She is perfectly in control of her life. Until one terrible night changes everything. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble. Jaded is a razor-sharp, darkly funny exploration of identity, consent and love.

Mike McCormack

$34.99, Canongate. Out now

Ela Lee

$34.99, Harvill/Secker. Out now

WHAT WE’RE READING

The Maniac Benjamin Labatut

$39.99, Pushkin. Out now

The Maniac is primarily a fictionalised biography of John Von Neumann, but Benjamin Labatut uses his life to explore the rush of scientific discoveries around the first half of the 20th century, and the minds that played key roles in it. Labatut draws a grand and fevered narrative of the genius and madness of mathematics, propelling us from the birth of nuclear physics to today’s rush towards artificial general intelligence. Insightful, fascinating, and heartbreaking. – Tilda, Glebe

The Painter’s Daughters Emily Howes

$32.99, Phoenix. Out February

Historical fiction loosely based around the English painter, Thomas Gainsborough and his famous painting of his two daughters – Molly (Mary) and Peggy (Margaret) – and the unspoken mental illness that had huge implications on their lives. There is also a side story about wife and mother, Margaret, that ties it all in very nicely.I really enjoyed this debut novel and recommend it to those who love Maggie O’Farrell. – Victoria, Blackheath

Jonathan Buckley

$32.95, Giramondo. Out March

The List of Suspicious Things Jennie Godfrey

Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family because of the murders. Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all? Miv and Sharon decide to make a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. But their search for the truth just reveals more secrets. What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home? The List of Suspicious Things is funny, poignant and filled with compassion. $34.99, Hutchinson Heinemann. Out now

ALSO OUT The Extinction of Irena Rey Jennifer Croft $35, Scribe. Out February

Dark Arena

John Beaumont $32.99, Allen & Unwin. Out now

February-March 2024

Fiction INTERNATIONAL FICTION

Bluebeard’s Castle

Wandering Stars

Judith is a successful novelist and comes from a good family, but isn’t sure if she loves the handsome doctor who is courting her. Then she meets Gavin, a handsome and charming baron whose love transforms her from a plain, lonely girl into a beautiful, glamorous woman overnight. After a whirlwind honeymoon in Paris, he whisks her away to a Gothic castle in the countryside. But she finds herself trapped in a nightmare, as her husband’s alternation of charm and violence becomes more and more confusing and frightening.

Wandering Stars is an unforgettable novel of America’s war on its own people. It follows its characters through almost two centuries of history, from the horrors of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1865 to the aftermath of a mass shooting in the early 21st century. It is also the tender, shattering story of many generations of a Native American family, struggling to find ways through displacement, addiction and pain, towards home and hope.

Anna Biller

$26.99, Verso. Out February

Come and Get It Kiley Reid

$32.99, Circus. Out now

Millie wants to graduate, get a job and buy a house. When a visiting professor offers her an unusual opportunity to make some extra money, she jumps at the chance. Agatha, a writer, is researching attitudes towards weddings and money for her new book. She strikes gold when interviewing the girls in Millie’s dorm, but the two soon become embroiled in a world of roommate theatrics, vengeful pranks and illicit intrigue. Sharp, intimate and provocative, Come and Get It takes a lens to our money-obsessed society in a tension-filled story about desire, consumption and bad behaviour.

Until August

Gabriel García Marquez Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover. Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire. Constantly surprising and wonderfully sensual, Until August is a profound meditation on freedom, regret, and the mysteries of love from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the greatest writers the world has ever known. $35, Viking. Out March

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over Anne de Marcken

$29.99, NewSouth. Out March

Gleebooks Gleaner

The heroine of this haunting, spare novel is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, our undead narrator notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. She has forgotten even her name, but she remembers with unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known — where she loved and was loved. She heads west and into mind-boggling adventures, carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest. The joint winner of the Novel Prize, It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is a sharp and funny tale for our dispossessed times.

Tommy Orange

$34.99, Harvill/Secker. Out March

Orbital

Samantha Harvey In this spellbinding and uplifting novel, six astronauts rotate in the International Space Station. They are there to do vital work, but slowly they begin to wonder – what is life without Earth? Together they watch their silent blue planet, spinning past continents, and cycling through seasons. Although they are separated from the world, they cannot escape its constant pull. As they look on, a typhoon gathers over an island and the people they love, the fragility of human life fills their conversations and dreams. $35, Jonathan Cape. Out now

The Perfect Passion Company Alexander McCall Smith

The Perfect Passion Company shows Alexander McCall Smith at his most perceptive, playful, and generous. This novel offers a glimpse inside the psychology of matchmaking, the search for love and companionship, and the mysterious spark of attraction that can, at times, catch hold of us all. $39.99, Polygon. Out March

Fiction CRIME AND THRILLERS

The Fury

Alex Michaelides

Body of Lies

One spring morning, reclusive ex-movie star Lana Farrar invites a small group of her closest friends for a weekend away, on her small private island, just off the coast of Mykonos. Beneath the surface, old friendships conceal violent passions and resentments. And in 48 hours, one of them will be dead. But that is just the beginning. You may think you know this story. Think again. The Fury is an exhilarating, gripping new psychological thriller from the author of the bestseller, The Silent Patient.

A car crash victim is rushed to hospital but can’t be saved. Hours later, her corpse is stolen from the morgue. No one knows who she was or why her body was taken. Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is back in her hometown of Smithson on maternity leave when the bizarre incident occurs. As the investigation to discover the woman’s identity unfolds, Gemma uncovers devastating secrets about the people she thought she knew best. The closer Gemma gets to the truth, the more danger she is in. This is a gripping, white-knuckle thriller from the bestselling author of The Dark Lake and The Housemate.

Sarah Bailey

$34.99, Allen & Unwin. Out February

$34.99, Michael Joseph. Out now

Knife Skills for Beginners

End of Story

When chef Paul Delamare takes a job teaching at an exclusive cookery school in Belgravia, the only thing he expects his students to murder is his taste buds. But on the first night, someone turns up dead ... The police are convinced Paul is the culprit. To prove his innocence, he must find the killer. Could it be one of his students? The owner of the school? If Paul can’t solve the mystery fast, he’ll be next to get the chop. Knife Skills for Beginners is the first novel in a gripping new cosy crime series by Orlando Murrin.

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.” This is the chilling invitation from Sebastian Trapp, renowned mystery novelist, to his long-time correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. Welcomed into his lavish San Francisco mansion, Nicky begins to unravel Trapp’s life story. Two decades ago, his first wife and son vanished, the case never solved. Is the master of mystery playing a deadly game? This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller from the author of the bestseller The Woman in the Window.

$37.99, Bantam. Out March

$32.99, Hemlock Press. Out March

Orlando Murrin

AJ Finn

Anna O

Cahokia Jazz

Radiant Heat

Anna Ogilvy was a budding 25-year-old writer with a bright future. Then, one night, she stabbed two people to death with no apparent motive – and hasn’t woken up since. Dr Benedict Prince is a forensic psychologist and an expert in the field of sleep-related homicides. His methods are the last hope of solving the infamous “Anna O” case and waking Anna up so she can stand trial. But he must be careful treating such a high-profile suspect – he’s got career secrets and a complicated personal life of his own.

In a city that never was, on a snowy night at the end of winter, two detectives find a body. It’s 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. The ancient city of Cahokia lives on – a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will bring destruction or rebirth. Francis Spufford returns with a lovingly created, epically scaled tale set in the golden age of wicked entertainments.

A catastrophic bushfire came out of nowhere one summer afternoon, a wall of fire fed by blustering wind. When Alison emerges from her sheltering place, she sees a soot-covered cherry red car in her driveway, and in it, a dead woman. Alison has never met her, so what is she doing here? As Alison searches for answers across Australia’s scorched bushlands, she soon learns that the fire isn’t the only threat she’s facing. A gripping, claustrophobic mystery set against the horror of natural disaster.

$32.99, HarperCollins. Out now

$34.99, Faber Fiction. Out now

$34.99, Berkley. Out now

Matthew Blake

Francis Spufford

Sarah-Jane Collins

February-March 2024

Fiction CRIME AND THRILLERS

Listen for the Lie

Butter

Amy Tintera

You probably already know about me. Lucy Chase, the woman who doesn’t remember murdering her best friend. You probably think I did it, too. That’s OK, I get it. Being found wandering the streets covered in her blood wasn’t a great look. Believe me, I’d love to know if I’m a murderer. And now, thanks to the truecrime podcast Listen for the Lie, I finally have the chance. But will I be able to live with myself if it turns out it was me? And if it wasn’t, will digging into the secrets of the night I forgot make me the next target of whoever did? Listen for the Lie is a whip-smart black comedy thriller with a completely original voice.

Asako Yuzuki

$32.99, HarperCollins. Out March

Femicide

Pascal Engman

$34.99, Bantam. Out March

Point Zero

Seichō Matsumoto In 1958 Tokyo, Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband’s disappearance is tied up with the socalled ‘pan-pan girls’, women who worked as postwar sex workers catering to American GIs. Now, 10 years later, as the country recovers, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past. Renowned crime writer Seichō Matsumoto skillfully dissects Japanese society in this gripping thriller set against the backdrop of postwar recovery and societal transformation. $24.99, Bitter Lemon. Out March

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak to the media, except for one journalist, Rika Machida. As the visits unfold, they become closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Inspired by the real case of the convicted “The Konkatsu Killer”, Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

$27.99, Legend Press. Out March

When 25-year-old Emelie is found murdered in her Stockholm apartment, Detective Vanessa Frank sees an open-and-shut case, but before long she suspects there may be a connection to the “incels” movement. As a sexual assault survivor comes forward, Frank delves deeper into this shadowy group, who claim to be weaponising the gender war. Desperate to prevent further attacks, she intensifies the investigation when a women’s music festival becomes a potential target, unveiling a chilling narrative of a vengeful movement willing to go to extremes to make its presence felt.

Gone

Glenna Thomson

$34.99, Bantam. Out now

When Rebecca Bundy fails to return home after the last day of school in 1984 her father reports her missing. But the teenager has run away before and recently she’s been bragging about going to Queensland, so the police tell the family to wait it out. Then a shocking murdersuicide at a local farm diverts police attention and Rebecca’s disappearance quickly becomes a cold case. But her younger sister Eliza has kept Rebecca’s secrets for 40 years. Now she’s ready to share her story.

The Meiji Guillotine Murders Futaro Yamada

$24.99, Pushkin. Out now

It is the dawn of the Meiji era in Japan, but the scars of the bloody recent civil war are yet to heal. A new police force promises to bring order to this land of feuding samurai warlords, and chief inspectors Kazuki and Kawaji are two of its brightest stars. Together they investigate a spree of baffling murders across the capital, moving from dingy drinking dens to high-class hotels and the heart of the Imperial Palace. The Meiji Guillotine Murders is a fiendish murder mystery from one of Japan’s greatest crime writers.

ALSO OUT The Consultant

The Concierge

Darkness Runs Deep

$32.99, Raven.

$34.99, Ultimo.

$34.99, Pan Macmillan.

Out now

Seong-Sun Im

Gleebooks Gleaner

Abby Corson

Claire McNeel

Fiction SPECULATIVE FICTION

Mary: or the Birth of Frankenstein Anne Eekhout

Lake Geneva, 1816. Eighteen-year-old Mary grapples with the torment of her lover Percy Shelley’s infidelity and the haunting loss of their baby. A stormy night, fueled by laudanum, sparks a challenge from Lord Byron to write a ghost story. Mary’s mind is stirred, unlocking memories of a summer in Scotland and her love for the mysterious Isabella Baxter. Mary: or the Birth of Frankenstein brilliantly reimagines Mary’s past, delving into a world where grief intertwines with desire, illuminating a thin veil between beauty and horror with vivid intensity. $39.99, Pushkin. Out now

The Book of Doors

House of Flame and Shadow

New York bookseller Cassie Andrews is not sure what she’s doing with her life. Then a favourite customer gives her an old book with a handwritten message at the front: “This is the Book of Doors. Hold it in your hand, and any door is every door.” Cassie is about to discover that this is a special book, a magic book. However there are some who will stop at nothing to possess it. Suddenly Cassie and her best friend Izzy are confronted by violence and danger. The Book of Doors is addictive, brilliantly written and utterly irresistible.

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she is stranded in this strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home to those she loves. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, Hunt Athalar has found himself stripped of his freedom and desperate to help Bryce. This is the stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.

$34.99, Bantam. Out now

$34.99, Bloomsbury. Out now

Gareth Brown

Sarah J Maas

The Great Undoing Sharlene Allsopp

In a near future all identity information is encoded in digital language. Nations know where everyone is, all the time. When the system is hijacked and shut down, all global borders are closed, leaving Scarlet Friday, whose job it is to correct the historical record, stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version. This gripping novel blurs the lines between historical and contemporary fiction; between reality and fantasy, and will make you question everything you think you know about Australia. $34.99, Ultimo. Out now

The Book of Love Kelly Link

Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them. Revived by Mr Anabin, the man they knew as their high school music teacher, they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm if they can solve the mystery surrounding their deaths. But their return has upset a delicate balance that has held just for millennia. From Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link. $34.99, Ad Astra. Out now

February-March 2024

Poetry At the River Peter Boyle

Sunday. Bright sun. Tomorrow you’ll turn eight. You have already entered the water and stand waist-deep now in its blue quiet right where, any moment, the mud underfoot will plunge into swift cold currents. Across the river’s wide bend the water’s shimmer, its long curve of light, settles exactly where you are standing, the furthest point the late morning sun reaches. Interweaving your fingers you cup your hands as if you were calling to unseen friends further out, caught up in your own delight to feel your breath rush through your hands to bounce reckless off the sky. And you wait a moment as if your voice might come back to you from somewhere far across your life, rippling back from distant suburbs and unknown cities, fields and hillsides, from the joys, griefs and bewilderments, as if one Sunday morning, aged seven, you’d gone fishing only to haul in the world which you couldn’t know or see but somehow sensed echoing back like shadows into the blue circling stillness. At the River is among the poems contained in Companions, Ancestors, Inscriptions, the 11th collection of poetry from award-winning poet and translator Peter Boyle (pictured). Vagabond Press, $25. Out now

Describe the Singularity in the Style of Emily Dickinson lk holt

recombined from 50 ChatGPT3 iterations for Jordie Albiston In outward scour of Time an old gas giant eyes us in new Uncertainty— our Secrets—hard to prize. Force of thought—blacklight— the Singularity will have the World—held tight— unborn inside an Effigy. Dream ages into Law— Thought—and World—combine— becoming All in self-awe. One cold leap for mind— and all Things—still warm, still Love—left behind remind the One of more. From lk holt’s, Three Books. Holt (pictured) has published six books including Birth Plan. She is the recipient of the NSW Premier’s Award for Poetry and the Grace Leven Prize. Vagabond Press, $25. Out now

Gleebooks Gleaner

Poetry & Anthology The Many Hundreds of the Scent Shane McCrae

Renowned poet Shane McCrae returns with The Many Hundreds of the Scent, delving into his poetic and personal mythologies. Sharing childhood trauma, he vividly recalls being kidnapped by white supremacist grandparents from his Black father. The collection seamlessly weaves Homeric figures with contemporary scenes, depicting Helen, Penelope, and Dido. McCrae’s originality shines in poems about post-rock’s emergence and Bark Psychosis’s Hex. This poignant and surprising collection reaffirms McCrae’s status as a powerful and engaging poet, offering an extraordinary journey through both myth and personal experience. $29.99, Corsair. Out February

A Year of Last Things Michael Ondaatje

Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje was sent as a child to school in London, and later moved to Canada. These poems reflect the life of a writer and traveller born out of diverse cultures. Here, while rediscovering the influence of every border crossed, he moves back and forth in time, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss. At first sight it is a glittering collection of fragments and memories, but small, intricate pieces of a life are what matter most to Ondaatje. They make an emotional history.

Woven Anthology

Following from the much-loved Guwayu anthology, this second collaboration between Red Room Poetry and Magabala Books brings together some of the world’s leading First Nations poets in poetic conversation. This collection weaves words across lands and seas, gathering collaborative threads and shining a light on First Nations poetry from Australia and across the globe. $27.99, ADS. Out now

$34.99, Jonathan Cape. Out March

Granta 165: Deutschland Thomas Meaney

Granta 165, the first edition under new editor Thomas Meaney, presents Germany’s most exciting new voices reflecting on the state of the country today. This issue includes fiction by Judith Hermann and Clemens Meyer (tr. Katy Derbyshire) and essays by Lauren Oyler and Lutz Seiler (tr. Martyn Crucefix) and Peter Richter. Plus, a poem by Frederick Seidel, and photography by Ilyes Griyeb with an introduction by Imogen West-Knights. $32.99, Granta. Out now

Povo

Adam Anderson Australia is often referred to as The Lucky Country – a land of economic opportunity and vast natural resources. But how does this myth square up against the true experiences of Indigenous and culturally diverse Australians living in our nation’s most densely populated regions? Povo features a ground-breaking collection of prose, poetry and non-fiction works by emerging and established writers from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.. $19.99, Sweatshop. Out now

February-March 2024

Q&A

Light in the dark Dr Joëlle Gergis is a lead author on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report – a global, state-of-the art review of climate change science. In this interview she talks about blending memoir and science for her award-winning book Humanity’s Moment, what fuels her hope for the planet’s future, and what to expect from her forthcoming Quarterly Essay. How did your book Humanity’s Moment come to be? Humanity’s Moment came about from wanting to share my experience of being an Australian climate scientist involved in the latest United Nations climate report developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Being an IPCC lead author was a life-changing experience, as I got a chance to assess the scientific evidence for climate change from every corner of the world. The scale of the climate crisis hit me in a visceral way. I knew I had to find a way to share the concerns of the scientific community with as wide an audience as possible, but I also realised I needed to find a more human way of talking about things. This led to Humanity’s Moment being written as a blend of memoir and science, which isn’t an approach that is commonly taken with this topic. It was my way of trying to rehumanise the conversation about climate change, which can sometimes feel very overwhelming or technical. Humanity’s Moment is a heartbreaking read but it’s also imbued with hope and courage. What sustains your hope for the future of our planet? What gives me hope is that the social movement needed to protect our planet is growing by the day. People have enormous capacity for change, we just need to be motivated by something we truly care about. Just this morning I received an email from a climate change sceptic whose son gave them a copy of Humanity’s Moment for Christmas. They laughed, but promised to read it to make him happy. They were surprised to find themselves in tears just reading the prologue. They wrote to tell me that my book changed their life. I’m very moved when readers reach out to share stories like this with me. Ultimately what keeps me going is knowing that in all darkness, there is light. We can choose to be a source of goodness in a bruising world. We can be a person that helps restore another person’s faith in humanity. Sometimes I lose sight of hope for the future, but sheltering in the goodness of others helps me weather the storms. You’re now writing a Quarterly Essay on climate peril and paralysis, out in June. Will this essay reflect any change in your perspective since Humanity’s Moment was published in 2022? Do you still see us rising to the challenge of global warming?

Gleebooks Gleaner

Dr Joëlle Gergis: ‘People have enormous capacity for change.’

A lot has happened in Australia and globally since then, but progress is still inadequate and the impacts of climate change are escalating. My essay is a wake-up call that I hope helps trigger a more appropriate response to the crisis we are facing. On a lighter note – when it comes to your writing practice, are you a meticulous planner, or do you wait for a structure to form organically? While I’m more of a planner than a free-form writer, I don’t like to over-engineer things. I tend to sketch out a general outline first and then flesh my ideas out with dot points to help get started. I’m always open to seeing what arises in the writing process, but I use my outline as a roadmap of where I’m trying to go. Sometimes the path meanders, but having a basic idea of the structure helps keep me on track. What’s one book you think everyone should read? Humanity’s Moment. If you only ever read one book about climate change, please consider reading mine. It might speak to you in unexpected ways. The social movement needs you! Dr Joëlle Gergis’s 2022 book Humanity’s Moment (Black Inc, $36.99) was shortlisted in the Australian Book Industry Awards and Queensland Literary Awards, and won Scholarly Book of the Year in the 2023 Educational Publishing Awards Australia. She’s working on a Quarterly Essay on climate peril and paralysis, which will be out in June. Read about more Black Inc authors and their works at blackincbooks.com.au/blog

Children PICTURE BOOKS

This Is My Happy Place Emma Bowd and Jen Khatun

A Horse Called Now

Ruth Doyle and Alexandra Finkeldey

Do you have a special Happy Place, where a smile swims over the whole of your face? Celebrate the places, people and things that bring us joy in this uplifting and spirited book. From the author of Wonderful Shoes (Windy Hollow), with bold and whimsical illustrations by Jen Khatun. $19.99, Affirm. Out February

The Beehive

Megan Daley and Max Hamilton It’s finally hive day! Willow has been waiting all year for groundskeeper Tom to split the school’s native stingless beehive in two so she can take home her very own hive. Everything needs to be just right so that the bees thrive in their new home. In dual text, teacher and author Megan Daley and award-winning illustrator Maxine Hamilton tell a charming story along with fascinating facts about Australia’s native bees. $26.99, Walker. Out now

Fast, Slow. Let’s Go

Sally Sutton and Brian Lovelock

Everyone Wants an Octopus Book!

This is the way we skate along, skate along, skate along, this is the way we skate along on a sunny, funny morning. Borrowing from the childhood perennial and favourite song This Is the Way, a happy group of children scoot, bike, bus, swing, sail, run and ride their way across town to join a birthday surprise. This is a fresh new celebration of transportation from the creators of the bestselling Roadworks series.

Now the Horse loves to stand in his field of green and admire the beauty of nature. The birds are singing, the crickets are chattering … what else could he wish for? But for the other animals in the farmyard, every sound and shadow signals threat and danger. Is Rabbit being chased by a hungry Fox? And is a swooping Magpie trying to catch Hen’s chicks? When a thunder storm arrives, Now leads the animals to shelter in a barn, where they discover that not everything is as frightening as it seems. $24.99, Nosy Crow, Out now

$24.99, Walker. Out now

Liz Ledden and Makata Koji

Inky the octopus wants to read a book with a character that looks like them. With their best friend, Quack the duck, they scour every shelf, but all they seem to find are more books about ducks! Why aren’t there any stories with octopuses? Everyone Wants an Octopus Book! is a thought-provoking picture book about how everyone deserves to see themselves in books. $24.99, Bright Light. Out March Illustration from Everyone Wants an Octopus Book! by Makoto Koji

February-March 2024

Children MIDDLE GRADE 8-12

Wongutha Tales

Circles of Life

First published as individual titles in 1992, May O’Brien’s stories were ground-breaking publications, presenting traditional Indigenous stories in a bilingual text and giving a unique insight into learning English as a second language from a First Nations perspective. Classic tales such as How Crows Became Black and Why the Emu Can’t Fly are still as fresh and appealing as ever. From traditional Indigenous teaching stories to stories based on the author’s childhood at Mount Margaret Mission, Wongutha Tales is a unique collection bringing together May O’Brien’s wonderful work for the first time.

With ochre from Mother Earth, two young girls are guided by Uncle to paint each layer of Thank You Circles as a celebration of the different elements of our world. When the dots are placed together, they form astonishing circles of life. This astounding work about Indigenous art from Kamilaroi author Gregg Dreise will delight children and adults alike.

May L O’Brien

$14.99, Fremantle Press. Out February

Gregg Dreise

$24.99, Puffin. Out March

Girls

Annet Schaap and Laura Watkinson

$27.99, Pushkin. Out now

A girl comes face-to-face with a not-so Big Bad Wolf, a monstrous princess is locked away on a deserted island, a girl gives up on kissing a frog: Annet Schaap adapts seven well-known fairy tales into inspiring stories about girls with their own dreams and desires. These are no damsels in distress, but real girls of flesh and blood – who certainly don’t need rescuing. Girls is a collection of dark, funny retellings of classic fairytales for girls growing up in the modern world.

PICTURE BOOKS

Night Watch

Jodi Toering and Tannya Harricks Sunset beckons. Moon appears, and Tawny Frogmouth stirs. She begins her nightly flight, watching over all the animals nestled down to sleep in the burrows and branches of the beautiful Australian bush. This beautiful bedtime book follows the journey of the Tawny Frogmouths as they soar through the skies and through the night, keeping watch over native fauna as they settle in for their safe slumber. $26.99, Walker. Out now

GLEEBOOKS BOOK CLUB Calling all bookworms: we want to hear about your favourite reads! We’d love to feature more of our wonderful book clubbers in our Gleaner magazine. So if you’ve got a book you’d like to review or if you want to write about an author that’s visiting, send us an email at rachel@gleebooks.com.au. We have exciting giveaways waiting for you!

Shower Land 1: Break the Curse

Nat Amoore and James Hart Felix hates Mondays. Dad’s yelling at him to get up. His little brother, Olly, is being super annoying. So when Felix shuts the bathroom door, he wishes he could get away. He turns on the shower and … finds himself standing in the middle of a field … naked with an army of soldiers charging at him. Quantum Leap meets The Magic Faraway Tree in this hilarious junior fiction series where getting in the shower might send you to another world! $14.99, Puffin. Out February

The Peak, (Spy Academy #1) Jack Heath

After thwarting a robbery, Nolan Hawker is invited to the world’s most dangerous school. At The Peak, he learns to crack codes, fly planes and deceive enemies so he can infiltrate the deadly anarchist group, Swarm. But someone at the Peak secretly works for Swarm, and they have a plan – the kind no one walks away from. Can Nolan find the traitor before it’s too late? $17.99, Scholastic. Out now

Gleebooks Gleaner

Children YOUNG ADULTS

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Island of Whispers

Frances Hardinge and Emily Gravett On the island of Merlank, the Dead must not be allowed to linger. The very sight of their ghosts can kill you. When young Milo is thrust into the role of Ferryman following his father’s sudden death, he is the one who must carry away the Dead. Pursued by a vengeful lord and two malignant magicians, Milo must navigate strange and perilous seas where untold threats whisper in the mist. Does he have the courage and imagination to complete his urgent mission? This riveting coming-of-age tale will sweep you away on an unforgettable journey. Ages 12+ $34.99, Two Hoots. Out March

Invocations Krystal Sutherland

$24.99, Penguin Out now

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider – that her murdered sister is gone forever. Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. It’s a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s problems. When Emer’s clients start turning up dead all over London, she strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list. Ages 14+

POETRY

Right Way Down Anthology

$17.99, Fremantle. Out February

Stand on your head with Sally Murphy, explode some dynamite with Cristy Burne or shoot some hoops with Cheryl Kickett-Tucker. Grow a poettree with Meg McKinlay or curl up next to your cat with Amber Moffat and watch a bit of Stink-o-Vision with James Foley. These and loads more poems by Australian poets are there to discover in Right Way Down. With striking illustrations by Briony Stewart, these poems will have you laughing, thinking, and playing with words. Ages 9+

Gods and Monsters Anthology, ed. Ana Sampson

$39.99, Macmillan. Out February

People all over the world have always told each other stories. And from the very earliest times, many of these stories were told in verse. This collection of poems includes retellings and reimaginings of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Aztec, Japanese and Inuit mythology. You will meet gods, monsters, tricksters, heroes, magical creatures and objects, magicians and spirits. Gods & Monsters includes poems from Neil Gaiman, WB Yeats, Kate Tempest, Sylvia Plath, Shakespeare, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joseph Coelho and many more. With illustrations by Chris Riddell.

Nell of Gumbling Emma Steinkellner

To everyone else, the magical land of Gumbling is something out of fairy tales. But to Nell Starkeeper, it’s just home. Sure, her dads run a star farm, and her best friend Myra is a fairy, but Nell is much more interested in finding out if she’ll get the seventh grade apprenticeship of her dreams with world-famous artist Wiz Bravo. Meanwhile, some weird strangers who talk about turning Gumbling into a fancy resort lead Nell on the quest to find a way to save everything that makes her world magical. Ages 11+ $24.99, RHUS. Out now

NONFICTION

Up and Down

Tracey Turner and Jane Burnard Read one way, Up and Down focuses on what’s up above us – clouds, stars, the sun and moon, things that fly. Flip the book and read it the other way to find out what’s down beneath our feet – burrowing animals, the Earth’s crust, fossils, caves, the Earth’s core. Colourful illustrations by Dawn Cooper bring vivid scenes to life, while text by Jane Burnard describes every facet of the natural world. Ages 7+ $26.99, Macmillan. Out February

Your Brain Is a Lump of Goo Idan Ben-Barak and Christopher Nielsen

Hi, I’m your brain. Here are some things you should know about me: I’m about the size of a pineapple. I sit behind your eyes. I look like a big walnut (but gooey). I’m not a computer. So what do I do? Oh, just about everything. Read all about me in this fun-filled book made by me – about brains, for brains. Ages 6+ $24.99, Allen & Unwin. Out now

February-March 2024

Shop Talk

From the Heathens

he mist has rolled into Blackheath to welcome in 2024 and we have gone the full Bronte with lots of reading in the parlour when not out for bracing walks across the mountain moors. Here are some of our favourite things for the start of the year. Tiff recently inhaled Held by Anne Michaels. With its beautiful, haunting prose Michaels explores love, loss and the nature of the soul. Told across three generations of women and their great loves you glimpse fragments of memory and time in a series of poignant vignettes. Jane’s favourites include The Reformatory by masterful storyteller Tananarive Due, about a reform school in Florida run by a psychopath back in the 1950s. The abuse and horror the kids go through is terrible to read, but so important to remember this Jim Crow period of American History, so that we hopefully never ever repeat the past. Stories like this reveal who the West have been as a community, a nation, when places like this were allowed to exist and most people knew but turned away and did nothing – the US as well as Australia. And Iron Flame by Rebecca Yaros, part two of the riveting Empyrean Saga. If you loved Fourth Wing, you’ll love this one. Harry Potter meets Game of Thrones in the ultimate Dark Academia fix. Ava loves a memoir, and Pretty Baby by Chris Belcher hits her list with a crash. A compelling memoir of a lesbian dominatrixturned-academic, Belcher describes growing up in a blue collar, Republican small town which rejected and attacked her homosexuality. Once she moved to Los Angeles, Belcher met her first serious girlfriend, a woman who introduced her to the underground world of sex work with wealthy clients. Ava also reread one of her old favourites, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, a stunning, pared-down memoir of a childhood spent in the shadow of an abusive stepfather. Wolff’s memoir is a page-turning account of the ways in which people devise methods of psychological escape when they can’t leave their circumstances. Jody mixes her fiction with her non-fiction, with Lauren Groff’s latest novel, The Vaster Wilds, set deep in winter as a servant girl escapes into the dark woods from a plague-bitten settlement in New World America. Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies, Matrix) hauntingly twists age-old storytelling – wolves, huntsmen, echoes of First Nations creation fables, Greek myths and Grimms’ fairy tales – into a “can’t look away” modern-day parable of womanhood and survival. The writing breaks and blows like a

Gleebooks Gleaner

FESTIVE HITS How lovely that Australian writers dominate Blackheath’s top sellers for Christmas 2023 – including fellow Blackheathen, Michael Duffy! Question 7, Richard Flanagan (pictured) Killing for Country, David Marr Edenglassie, Melissa Lucashenko The Bee Sting, Paul Murray Tom Lake, Ann Patchett Prophet Song, Paul Lynch Bright Shining, Julia Baird Man in Black, Michael Duffy Lola in the Mirror, Trent Dalton Wifedom, Anna Funder

Photo: Random House

bone-rattling tempest but there is a gentleness within the story that grabs your heart and mind. If you had just three things to take from a burning building, this would be one of them. The lyrical Graft by Maggie Mackeller, is a memoir of motherhood, family and a year on the land – a memoir covering this territory can be easily dismissed by some but this extraordinary memoir balances itself between reflections of the profound and mundane. Mackeller is attuned to the landscape of the sheep farm in Tasmania where she lives but also counterpoints it with deeply affecting and poetic accounts of the rhythms of farming life, memories of the loss of her partner, of her children moving away from home and the loss of life cycles that are being disrupted by climate change. Victoria has gone classic with Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety which blew her mind. Two young couples meet for the first time during the Great Depression – Charity Lang and Sally Morgan are both pregnant and their husbands, Sid and Larry, both have jobs in the English department at the university. We follow their entwined lives through love and the trials of everyday life. It is written with deep compassion and a powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

Nonfiction BIOGRAPHY

The House of Hidden Meanings

Mirror and the Road

RuPaul recounts the story of his life with breathtaking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography. From his early years growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego navigating complex relationships with his absent father and temperamental mother, to forging an identity in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, to finding enduring love with his husband Georges LeBar and self-acceptance in sobriety, RuPaul excavates his own biography, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history.

Acclaimed author Alistair Owen interviews one of Britain’s best-loved writers of modern times about his life and work. In this probing series of exclusive interviews, he talks to William Boyd about his works and the life which has inspired them. The conversations that emerge are a deepdive into film, art, theatre, literature and the life of a writer.

RuPaul

$34.99, Harper Collins. Out March

Some People Want to Shoot Me Wayne Bergmann and Madelaine Dickie

$35.99, Fremantle. Out February

As a Nyikina man living in traditional and modern cultures, Wayne Bergmann has maintained a lifelong commitment to his community and their needs. As the former head of the Kimberley Land Council, he played a crucial role in shaping the future of the region. He has worked tirelessly to promote independent Aboriginal economic development and reclaim what has been lost due to racism and discrimination. Some People Want to Shoot Me is the moving memoir of a prominent Aboriginal leader who has often paid a high price for sticking up for his people.

Monument Bonny Cassidy

$32.95, Giramondo. Out now

Following the threads and detours signalled by research, objects and testimony, Bonny Cassidy makes a case for the value of “collected memory” against the tide of settlement and silence. Inspired by the methods of Natalie Harkin’s archival poetics and Katrina Schlunke’s Bluff Rock: Autobiography of a Massacre, Cassidy considers how non-Indigenous Australians might absorb First Nations truth-telling; and what this means for acts of speech and writing. Should our memories serve the living or the dead, the past or the present? Why do we need new monuments in Australia, and where should we expect to find them?

WHAT WE’RE READING

The Conversion Amanda Lohrey

$32.99, Text, Out now

I enjoyed Amanda Lohrey’s last book, Labyrinth, so I was looking forward to reading The Conversation. The story revolves around the ever-optimistic Nick and the more cautious Zoe. When Nick finds an old, deconsecrated church for sale, his enthusiasm knows no bounds, but Zoe is not so sure and asks Nick to wait a year. What happens in that year is tragic and life-changing. Lohrey is very good at evoking time and place – you can see the little stone church, with its beautiful stained-glass windows, and the parched land surrounding it. I really enjoyed this book. – Janice, Glebe

Alistair Owen and William Boyd

$24.99, Penguin. Out now

The Cancer Finishing School Peter Goldsworthy

A GP of 40 years’ practice, as well as one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, Peter Goldsworthy brings his characteristic black humour to his cancer journey. When accidentally diagnosed, he was thrown into a world of hospital visits, sleepless and hyped-up nights on dexamethasone and life-saving chemotherapy. Never one to waste a story, Goldsworthy intersperses his own experience with odd and astonishing case stories of patients and literary friends who have trodden the same path. This is a darkly funny, bittersweet memoir offering lessons on how to live life in the shadow of an incurable illness. $36.99, Viking. Out March

ALSO OUT The Promised Party Jennifer Clement $39.99, Canongate. Out now

The Path to Paradise Sam Wasson $45, Faber. Out now

February-March 2024

Nonfiction BIOGRAPHY

SOCIOLOGY

An American Dreamer

Kin

As American Dreamer begins, Brent Cummings finds himself coping with the feeling that the country he loves is fracturing in front of his eyes. An Iraq war veteran, raised to believe in a vision of America that values fairness, honesty, and respect, Cummings is increasingly surprised by the fear, anger and confusion that are sweeping through his beloved country. David Finkel, spent 14 years inside Brent Cummings’s world to create this intimate and vivid portrait of a man’s life and his quest for connection as America becomes ever more divided. This powerful book illuminates, with profound empathy, the feelings and lives of many people in America today.

In the 21st century, family structures have evolved beyond the traditional nuclear model. Kin explores the contemporary influences on parenthood, examining the experiences of childless couples, single parents by choice, and diverse family types. It delves into the impacts of adoption, sperm donation, IVF and surrogacy, and contemplates the potential for designer babies in the future. This incisive work reflects on the rapid development of assisted reproductive technology, urging a critical examination of its legal and ethical implications as we redefine the concept of family in the present and future.

David Finkel

$36.99, Scribe. Out February

Breath

The Pulling

Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of 21 and faced a rare cancer at the age of 30. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills. From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Metcalfe shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. Breath provides compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor’s guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.

When Adele Dumont is diagnosed with trichotillomania – compulsive hair-pulling – it makes sense of much of her life to date. The seemingly harmless quirk of her late teens rapidly developed into almost uncontrollable urges. Where might the origins of this condition be found? How can we distinguish between a nervous habit and a compulsion? In perfectly judged prose, both probing and affecting, Dumont illuminates how easily ritual can slide into obsession, and how close beneath the surface horror and darkness can lie.

$32.99, UQP. Out February

$29.99, Scribe. Out now

Carly-Jay MetCalfe

Adele Dumont

LGBTQIA+

Love and Money, Sex and Death McKenzie Wark

After a successful career, a 20-year marriage, and raising two kids, McKenzie Wark came out as a trans woman. Changing her social role and bodily form recast her whole relation to the world – her past life became a stranger to her. Told through a series of letters to her childhood self, her mother, sister and her past lovers, she grapples with where she has come from and what this change means. Combining the deeply personal and political, Love and Money, Sex and Death is a provocative call to arms that recasts the mould for trans memoirs. $32.99, Verso. Out now

Gleebooks Gleaner

Marina Kamenev

$36.99, NewSouth. Out March

REFUGEES

The Lucky Ones Melinda Harn

Though they are from different generations, countries and cultures, the families in this book all have one thing in common: they have escaped persecution in their homelands to find safety in Australia. Spanning 70 years, and tracking journeys from Iraq, Afghanistan, Poland, Tibet, Vietnam and Zaire, The Lucky Ones offers a window into the complex history of Australian refugee experiences. In their own words, the people in this book are some of the “lucky ones” who survived terror, detention, beatings and torture to reach a country that offered them a new beginning. $34.99, Affirm. Out now

WE’RE ON THE WEB Find more new releases at www.gleebooks.com.au

Nonfiction ESSAYS

Griffith Review 83: Past Perfect

Selected Writings

Edited by Carody Culver

WEH Stanner

In the 21st century, despite rapid technological advancements and digital transformations, there is a growing inclination to find comfort in the past. Whether it’s a fondness for retro designs, an appreciation for cultural creations that vividly reimagine past decades, or a longing for a golden era in politics, our fascination with the past remains strong. Past Perfect explores our tendency to idealise, sensationalise, and glamorise the past. It raises questions about the recurring nature of these obsessions and what they reveal about our current cultural climate.

This collection of essays offers a profound exploration of Aboriginal culture, challenging “the great Australian silence”. Described by Marcia Langton as “the most literate and persuasive” on Indigenous issues, Stanner’s 1968 Boyer Lectures exposed a national ‘cult of forgetfulness’. His essay Durmugam vividly portrays a warrior resisting cultural change. These essays span Stanner’s career, providing insights into Australian race relations. With timeless relevance amid a reckoning with injustices, Stanner’s writings showcase his extraordinary scholarship and contribute to the path to reconciliation. $36.99, La Trobe University. Out now

What Can We Hope For?

$27.99, Griffith Review. Out now

Richard Rorty

Kintsugi

Marie O’Rourke All her life, Marie O’Rourke has been a Good Girl, a perfectionist, using words to apply golden seams to an imperfect life in an attempt to make something beautiful out of things that are flawed or broken. A volatile father, the death of a sister far too young, a faltering marriage, the ghosts of lovers past: these are just some of the fragments that O’Rourke puts together again in these essays that explore her closest relationships as a daughter, sister, mother, wife and lover. With exquisite prose, O’Rourke reflects on the beauty of brokenness and the ways in which time can transform our understanding of truth, forgiveness, and healing. $29.99, Fremantle. Out now

$29.99, Princeton University. Out now

What Can We Hope For? compiles 19 essays by the influential intellectual Richard Rorty, known for presciently warning about a Trumpian rise almost two decades before the 2016 US presidential election. Addressing challenges like populism, economic inequality, overpopulation, and environmental devastation, Rorty offers both optimistic and realistic solutions. Advocating for social hope and a global community of trust, he emphasises the role of trade unions, universities, grassroots campaigns, and visionary politics. Driven by a sense of urgency, the collection provides insightful diagnoses of current political crises and innovative proposals for a collective future.

No Judgement: On Being Critical Lauren Oyler

$34.99, Virago. Out March

It is the age of internet gossip; of social networks, repackaged ideas and rating everything out of five stars. Mega-famous celebrities respond with fury to critics who publish less-than-rapturous reviews of their work; CEOs talk about reclaiming “the power of vulnerability”; and in the world of fiction, writers eschew actually making things up in favour of “just talking about themselves”. In this blistering, irreverent first book of nonfiction, Lauren Oyler takes on the bizarre particularities of our present moment in a series of interconnected essays about literature, the attention economy, gossip, the role of criticism and her own relentless, teeth-grinding anxiety.

ALSO OUT A Thousand Wasted Sundays

The Hebridean Baker at Home

$34.99, Pantera. Out now

$55, Black & White.

Victoria Vanstone

Coinneach MacLeod

For Social Betterment Jane Miller

$39.99, Monash University Press. Out now

Out now

February-March 2024

Nonfiction POLITICS

On Peter Dutton and the Forgotten People: Quarterly Essay 93 Lech Blaine

Influential conservatives have urged Liberal leader Peter Dutton to forget about the seats lost to the Teal independents at the last election and pursue outer-suburban and regional seats held by Labor. But what does Dutton really know about the Australian electorate? Has he updated Menzies’ Forgotten People pitch for the age of anxiety? Or will he collapse the Liberals’ “broad church”? This essay serves as both a portrait of Dutton’s leadership and a contemporary examination of Australian suburbs and their residents. $27.99, Quarterly Essay. Out March

The New World Disorder

Who Owns the Moon?

The West is facing an unprecedented crisis. Russia has launched a war of aggression against Ukraine – just months after the USA suffered a foreign policy debacle in Afghanistan. And China, the West’s rival in the battle for system superiority, has long since become a decisive superpower. Yet the triumph of the West had seemed unstoppable not that long ago. Peter R Neumann, an internationally acclaimed expert on terrorism and geopolitics, shows how this happened and what must happen now. He offers an unsparing critique of the current situation of the West, which has fatally overestimated itself.

The moon contains a wealth of natural resources including silicon, manganese and titanium, so it is no wonder that as the Earth’s supplies have begun to dwindle, the world’s superpowers and wealthiest corporations have turned their eyes to the stars. AC Grayling explores the history of the places which no one, and therefore everyone, owns, from feudal common land, through the rules of the sea, to the vast, nationless expanse of Antarctica. He puts forward a compelling argument for a bold new global consensus, one which recognises and defends the rights of everyone who lives on this planet.

Peter R Neumann

$36.99, Scribe. Out now

AC Grayling

Nuclear War: A Scenario Annie Jacobsen

$36.99, Torva. Out March

What would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon? One nuclear missile would provoke two dozen in return. Decisions over hundreds of millions of lives would need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information and knowing that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. Nuclear War is at once a compulsive nonfiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.

$34.99, Bloomsbury. Out February

GENDER STUDIES

Towards Reproductive Justice

Time to Reboot

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that overturned Roe v Wade, declaring that the American Constitution did not protect the right to abortion. Several US states immediately banned abortion, while others were quick to enact restrictive regulation. This decision sent shockwaves around the world, including in Australia. Towards Reproductive Justice frames the right to terminate a pregnancy as a human rights issue and considers Australian laws and policies that have advanced reproductive rights. At the same time, this book illuminates the enduring barriers to abortion access, acknowledging the remaining steps on the path to achieving full reproductive justice.

In the era of technological transformation, algorithms wield unprecedented influence on our behaviour. Simultaneously, women’s rights face renewed challenges, exemplified by the reversal of Roe v Wade in the US and a persistent rise in reported sexual assaults in Australia. Time to Reboot exposes how Big Tech’s biased algorithms perpetuate and amplify gender disparities and unpacks the uncomfortable parallels between a digital consumer culture we find impossible to resist and the nascent decline of gender equity. It explores whether the technology that is meant to guide us is pushing women backwards — and if so, how we can fix this.

Ronli Sifris

Monash University Press, $19.95. Out March

Gleebooks Gleaner

Carla Wilshire

Monash University Press, $19.95. Out March

Nonfiction HISTORY

The Shortest History of Italy

The Seven Wonders of The Ancient World

Italy was the centre of Europe’s first world-wide empire and the home of the Renaissance. Today it is the fifth most-visited country in the world. With a population of 60 million, it welcomes, each year, almost double that number of tourists. The Shortest History of Italy brings these and many other parts of the country alive through a panoramic sweep across years of politics, culture, history and larger-than-life, world-bestriding personalities such as Julius Caesar.

The Seven Wonders of the World were brilliant adventures of the mind, test cases for the reaches of human imagination. Now only the great pyramid remains fully standing, yet the scale and majesty of these seven wonders still enthral us today. In a thrilling, colourful narrative enriched with the latest archaeological discoveries, Bettany Hughes walks through the traces of the wonders themselves, and how they reinforce the exciting and nourishing notion that humans can make the impossible happen.

Bettany Hughes

Ross King

$34.99, W&N. Out now

The Shortest History of Economics Andrew Leigh

$27.99, Black Inc. Out March

Shakespeare’s Sisters Ramie Targoff

$27.99, Black Inc. Out now

In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us into the private lives of four mid-16th century women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men. Some readers may have heard of Mary Sidney, accomplished poet and sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, but few will have heard of Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary or Anne Clifford. These women had husbands and children to care for, yet against all odds they defined themselves as writers. Targoff helps us see the Renaissance in a fresh light, creating a richer understanding of history and offering a much-needed female perspective on life in Shakespeare’s day. $34.99, Riverrun. Out March

This small book tells a big story. From ancient times to the modern world, The Shortest History of Economics unearths the hidden economic forces behind war, innovation and social transformation. It traces how capitalism and the market system emerged, and introduces the key ideas and people who shaped the discipline of economics. From the emergence of agriculture to the warming of our planet, Andrew Leigh weaves a fascinating narrative punctuated by expert insights into key moments in human history. The result is an illuminating, entertaining book about the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

Girl Prince Danell Jones

In February 1910, Virginia Woolf infiltrated the battleship Dreadnought disguised as an African prince in what would become the most famous practical joke in British military history. The Girl Prince intertwines three narratives: the scandalous prank’s aftermath, Woolf’s perspectives on race and empire, and the true black experience in Britain. Despite Woolf’s predominantly white social circle, black lives intersected with hers, influencing national culture. Drawing on letters, diaries, and archives, Danell Jones explores this enigmatic event, delving into why the novelist participated in a blackface prank, and its implications for understanding Woolf’s Britain and work. $39.99, Hurst. Out now

Decadent women Jad Adams

During the 1890s, British women for the first time began to leave their family homes to seek work, accommodation, and financial and sexual freedom. Decadent Women is an account of some of these women who wrote for the innovative art and literary journal The Yellow Book. Jad Adams describes the lives and work of these vibrant and passionate women, from well-connected and fashionable aristocrats to the desperately poor. He narrates the challenges they faced in a literary marketplace, and within a society that overwhelmingly favoured men, describing lives of of adventure and romance as well as poverty, squalor, disease and unwanted pregnancy. $44.99. Reaktion. Out now

February-March 2024

Nonfiction SCIENCE

Death as Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal Juan José Millás and Juan Luis Arsuaga

In this captivating sequel to Life as Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal, Juan Luis Arsuaga explores the idea of a biological clock in each species, sparking a debate with writer Juan José Millás on life’s complexities. Bridging science and literature, the paleontologist imparts vital insights into existence while discussing ageing, longevity, disease and survival. The duo delves into themes of death and eternity, offering a unique blend of humour, biology, and profound reflections on evolution’s impact on us as a species and as individuals. $32.99, Scribe. Out February

Impossible Monsters

42 Reasons to Hate the Universe

In 1811, Mary Anning unearthed peculiar bones from Britain’s southern shore, challenging the prevailing belief in the Bible’s infallible history. Unbeknownst to many, Anning had found the “first” dinosaur. Over the next 75 years, as palaeontology advanced and Darwin proposed evolutionary theories, the relationship between science and religion evolved. Impossible Monsters narrates this complex journey through the voices of those who discovered crucial fossils, exploring how dinosaurs transformed perceptions of the Bible, history and humanity’s position in the world.

If you’ve always suspected the universe was out to get you ... you were right! Yes, the universe we live in is cosmically beautiful and mysterious. But it’s also a bit of a jerk. After all, remember that you are just a group of atoms structured in a specific way for barely long enough to try to understand this thing we call existence. The fact is, when you zoom out to look at the universe and how it functions, you’ll see that it’s usually not in our favor. 42 Reasons to Hate the Universe (and One Reason Not To) is a hilarious, no-holds-barred exploration of all the reasons we shouldn’t exist – but somehow do anyway.

Michael Taylor

Chris Ferrie, Wade David Fairclough and Byrne LaGinestra

$32.99, Sourcebooks. Out now

LAW

The Outback Court Reporter Jamelle Wells

$36.99, Jonathan Cape. Out March

LANGUAGE

The Deorhord Hana Videen

Many of the animals we encounter in everyday life have been the same since medieval times, but not in the words we use to describe them. Old English was spoken over a thousand years ago, when every animal was a “deor”. In this glittering Old English bestiary we find deors big and small, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the good, the bad and the downright baffling. From walker-weavers (spiders) and greycloaked ones (eagles), it’s a world both familiar and strange: where ants could be monsters and panthers could be your friend and where dog-headed men were as real as elephants. $34.99, Profile. Out now

Gleebooks Gleaner

$34.99, ABC Books. Out now

The Outback Court Reporter offers a poignant and humorous glimpse into the diverse cases within Australia’s country courtrooms. The book sheds light on the quirky side of outback courts but doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of rural life, addressing issues like Indigenous incarceration, alcohol-related problems and domestic violence. Jamelle Wells takes readers from grand sandstone court buildings to repurposed community halls, introducing the dedicated individuals navigating the complexities of the justice system in regional Australia. The book serves as a timely reminder of the pressing need for reform in addressing caseloads, limited resources, healthcare challenges, and justice system issues in these remote communities.

WHAT WE’RE READING

The Last Yakuza Jake Adelstein

Jake Edelstein is an American journalist who has spent most of his career in Japan. His book, The Last Yakuza is a must for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the Japanese Mafia, and follows on from his first, Tokyo Vice, which was fictionalised for an HBO series of the same name. Edelstein draws on his experience covering crime to describe how Yakuza culture is intertwined with traditional Bushido values. – Jane, Glebe and Blackheath $36.99, Scribe, Out now

Nonfiction ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY

Our Little Farm

Peter and Miriam Wohlleben tr. Jane Billinghurst

$39.99, Greystone. Out now

In Our Little Farm, Peter Wohlleben and his wife Miriam share a practical memoir of their journey towards a sustainable homestead nestled among the trees. Dubbed a “veritable tree whisperer” by The Wall Street Journal, Wohlleben takes readers into his German forest lodge, revealing the steps he and Miriam have taken to live harmoniously with nature. From planting and rotating crops to tending to animals, their story brims with insights and humour, showing that living sustainably is achievable with grit, compassion and a shared commitment to the Earth.

Climate Politics in Oceania

Susan Harris Rimmer, Caitlin Byrne and Wesley Morgan

$40, Melbourne UP. Out now

Australia’s ambitions for global climate policy leadership have been seriously undermined in recent years. Pacific Island nations have gained global traction and questioned Australia’s credibility within the Pacific family. The climate crisis now demands a new approach to regional cooperation in Oceania, and a fundamental re-ordering of strategic priorities. Climate Politics in Oceania highlights the potential for Australia to engage constructively with regional partners to secure Oceania’s interests now and in the future.

TECHNOLOGY

The Climate Crisis and Other Animals Richard Twine

The Climate Crisis and Other Animals examines the ways in which climate breakdown is affecting non-human animal species and delves deeply into the politicised controversy over the extent of emissions from animal agriculture, demonstrating the markedly lower emissions of eating vegan. Addressing the interconnectedness of climate breakdown, land-use changes, and the animal-industrial complex, Twine proposes transformative scenarios for a sustainable and just food system. The book underscores the urgency of redefining human-animal relations for effective climate and biodiversity crisis mitigation. $40, Sydney University Press. Out March

ASTROLOGY

The Economy of Algorithms

AstroLit

We are so impressed by what algorithms can do that we give them a lot of agency. In the first two decades of the 21st century, we saw the emergence of the economy of people. Now we’re seeing a new economy take shape: the economy of algorithms, otherwise known as the digital economy. But because algorithms are so hard to comprehend, this leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. Can an algorithm take your job? Why is it so hard to predict where technology will go next? These questions and more are answered by this exciting and ground-breaking book.

AstroLit is a cosmic voyage through the lives and works of literary giants from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Renowned literary history scholars McCormick Templeman and Rachel Feder bring the 12 signs of the zodiac to glimmering life by analysing the astrological influence of more than 50 illustrious writers’ sun signs on the shape and depth of their work. Each of the 12 sections focuses on a particular zodiac sign, featuring profiles of three celebrated authors, analysing their works and lives through the prism of their astrological sign.

$36.99, La Trobe University Press. Out March

$34.99, Clarkson Potter / Ten Speed. Out now

Marek Kowalkiewicz

McCormick Templeman and Rachel Feder

THEOLOGY

Reading Genesis Marilynne Robinson

Academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true. Both of these approaches preclude an appreciation of its greatness as literature, its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture. Marilynne Robinson’s magisterial new book is a powerful consideration of the profound meanings and promise of God’s enduring covenant with man. $29.99, Virago. Out March

February-March 2024

Nonfiction ART & DESIGN

Hannah Hoch: Assembled Worlds Martin Waldmeier

Hannah Höch (18891978) challenged artistic traditions through her radical montages. As the only woman who could hold her own in the German capital’s vibrant Dada scene of the 1920s, she broke with traditions, using scissors and glue as her tools. Her works dissected a world marked by the catastrophe of the Great War and an intense consumer culture, and reassembled it in revolutionary, poetic and often ironic ways. This illustrated book, delving into her fascination with film and modern visual culture, explores montage’s evolution amid artistic experimentation, commercialism, and political appropriation. The volume also features a text-collage on montage history, including insights from Modernist and Avant-garde figures. With 130 colour illustrations.

Dieric Bouts: Creator of Images Peter Carpreau

$115, Prestel. Out March

ARCHITECTURE

Zaha Hadid: Complete Works Phillip Jodidio

$75, ACC Art Books. Out now

How to Collect Art Magnus Resch

Navigating the world of collecting can be a tricky process, especially for one just starting out. Magnus Resch explains the core principles of the art market and reveals the secrets of how to build and grow an art collection. He answers sticky questions such as: What art should I invest in? Where do I start? Which gallery should I visit? How do I get VIP tickets for Art Basel? Is this price fair? This book is a comprehensive guidefor anyone interested in collecting art, novice or expert.

One of the foremost painters of the 15th century, Dieric Bouts was a master of composition, technical precision and spiritual messaging. But, as this innovative exhibition catalog suggests, he was also a shrewd commercial artist. This volume explores how Bouts’ career was influenced by the cultural and political environment of his hometown of Leuven. Filled with luminous reproductions and photographs of Bouts’ most important paintings and altarpieces, it focuses on several in depth, including The Last Supper and Christ Crowned with Thorns. Refreshing and authoritative, this unconventional perspective on a painter who lived half a millennium ago is a must-have for scholars and fans of Renaissance artwork. With 200 illustrations.

$49.99, Taschen. Out now

Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) was such a revolutionary architect that some said her work was impossible to build. But her daring visions eventually became a reality, bringing a new and unique architectural language to cities and structures such as the spectacular new airport terminal in Beijing. By her untimely death in 2016, Hadid was firmly established among architecture’s finest elite, working on projects worldwide, and being the first female architect to win the Pritzker Prize for architecture. Based on the massive Taschen monograph, this book is now available in an accessible edition covering Hadid’s complete works spanning her most pioneering buildings, furniture and interior designs.

Restoring Notre-Dame de Paris Patrick Zachmann

When Magnum photographer Patrick Zachmann captured the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral’s tragic fire on April 15, 2019, he unwittingly embarked on an extended documentation journey. From scaffolding to an aerial platform, he unveiled unseen facets of Notre-Dame’s altered silhouette and surviving artistic treasures. Granted early access to the worksite, Zachmann guides us through the reconstruction, with cathedral historian Olivier de Châlus offering insightful context. Throughout these pages, his photographs document an extraordinary human adventure and his diary entries shed an intimate light on the meticulous restoration of an architectural icon.

$99, Schiffer. Out March

$49.95, Phaidon. Out now

ALSO OUT Pigment Trail

Art Deco Style

$75, Schiffer.

$165, ACC Art Books.

Out March

Out now

Debra Luker

Alastair Duncan

A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World González Macías

$44.99, Picador. Out February

Gleebooks Gleaner

Nonfiction GAMING

FILM & TELEVISION

Critical Hits

So Fetch

Critical Hits is a celebration of the playfulness, and the lasting impact of videogames. Composed of sharp, impassioned, and inquisitive essays, this collection presents video games through the eyes of 18 writer-gamers as they straddle real and artificial worlds. In games, they find solace from illness and grief, test ideas about language, bodies, race, and technology, and see their experiences and identities reflected by the virtual realities they inhabit. This book illuminates an industry that is both wildly popular and grossly misunderstood.

Released in 2004, iconic teen comedy Mean Girls remains as relevant now as ever. But what made an adaptation of a parenting guide by Tina Fey so successful? And why, two decades later, can we all just not stop quoting it? Drawing on revealing interviews with the director, cast and crew, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong takes us behind the scenes of the film’s genesis, production and release. From how it shaped the Millennial generation to how it has intertwined with tabloid, meme and LGBTQIA+ culture. So Fetch is an unmissable read for anyone who is still “like, obsessed” with all things Mean Girls.

Edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J Robert Lennon

$34.99, Serpent’s Tail. Out now

MUSIC

Travelling Ann Powers

One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Joni Mitchell has inspired countless musicians and authors with her relentless drive to break down musical boundaries and create new sounds. In Travelling, Ann Powers seeks to understand the paradox of Mitchell – at once both elusive and inviting – through her myriad journeys. Drawing on extensive interviews with Mitchell’s peers and deep archival research, Powers takes readers to Mitchell’s beginnings in rural Canada, charts the course of her musical evolution, follows the winding road of her collaborations with other greats and explores her loves along the way. $34.99, HarperCollins. Out July

World Within a Song Jeff Tweedy

$32.99, Faber Music. Out now

What makes us fall in love with a song? What makes us want to write our own songs? Do songs help? Do songs help us live better lives? And do the lives we live help us write better songs? Jeff Tweedy, one of America’s best-loved performers and songwriters, is back with another disarming, beautiful, and inspiring book. Featuring more than 50 songs that have changed Jeff’s life and influenced his music, World Within a Song asks how we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

$34.99, HarperCollins. Out now

Netflicks

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth The dead have risen and destroyed the world. A religious fundamentalist government has taken over America and enslaved the female populace. A woman wakes each morning and is forced to relive the same day, caught in a time loop. In a secret laboratory, soldiers are given a secret drug to remove traumatic memories so they can be sent back to war more quickly. These outlandish scenarios are now quite familiar to us. We recognise them as the plots of some of our most loved shows and films. In this book, these situations are treated seriously for what they tell us about the world we are experiencing. In Netflicks Tony Hughesd’Aeth explains that screen dramas are a form of thought and that the streaming era has inaugurated a new kind of television – conceptual television. $22.99, UWA. Out now

ALSO OUT The Silver River

Tokyo Tokyo

$34.99, HarperCollins.

$130, Lannoo.

Out March

Jim Moginie

Richard Koek

Photography: a Queer History Flora Dunster and Theo Gordon

$85, Ilex Press. Out February

February-March 2024

Nonfiction SELF-HELP

TRAVEL

Off The Beaten Tracks In Japan

Power

Kemi Nekvapil

John Dougill

Women know what it’s like to feel powerless. We have had power diminished, taken from us and used over us. Yet the strongest, most enduring power is built internally. In Power, renowned leadership coach Kemi Nekvapil introduces a new framework for cultivating your power from the inside out. Drawing on stories from her own extraordinary life, and from the lives of leaders, gamechangers and everyday women who’ve learned to step into their power, Nekvapil shows how to practise, build and feel your inner force.

$24.99, Penguin. Out now

Little People Big Feelings Gen Muir

$36.99, Melbourne Uni Press. Out now

Parenting educator Gen Muir has helped thousands of families dealing with strong emotions and challenging behaviour in young kids. Fussy eating, bedtime battles, school refusal, public meltdowns, sibling rivalry? Muir shows how to work with your child through these issues without losing your mind or quashing your child’s spirit. Learn to set the kind of firm and kind boundaries essential for making your kids feel safe, to adopt effective alternatives to short-term praise and punishment techniques, to understand your own response to your kids’ feelings, and to connect more deeply with your children.

Languishing Corey Keyes

$36.99, Torva. Out now

Do you feel demotivated and aimless? Are you running on empty? Is it hard to pinpoint what’s wrong? Dr Corey Keyes calls it languishing, and here he draws on the latest research to trace its spread to a level of global epidemic. Breaking down the science of emotional exhaustion, Keyes shows that only by shifting our focus from feeling good to functioning well can we unlock the key to flourishing. Languishing is a must-read for anyone tempted to downplay the demotivation and emptiness they’ve been feeling, to help build a buffer against the pressures of modern life and find true flourishing.

This journey the length of Japan takes the reader off the beaten tracks to explore some of the country’s remoter regions along the Japan Sea – from Wakkanai in northern Hokkaido to Ibusuki in southern Kyushu – in a fascinating mix of travelogue, anecdote and personal memoir. At each of the 30 stops along the journey the author, who has lived in Japan for 30 years, goes in quest of the spirit of place, determined to highlight what makes it special. $34.99, Stone Bridge Press. Out now

Moshi Moshi Winnie Liu

Illustrator Winnie Liu brings her unique lens as an artist, avid foodie and anime fan to this charming illustrated travel diary. Guides to both popular and under-the-radar neighbourhoods of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto are interspersed with fun anecdotes and crash course guides to daily life in Japan. Winnie shares tips for using slang, eating like a local, and maximising a convenience store run. $27.99, Ulysses. Out now

PSYCHOLOGY

Mortal Secrets

The Anxious Generation

Some cities are like stars. When the conditions are right, they ignite and burn with fierce intensity. From 1890 to the 20th century, Vienna became a dazzling beacon, powered by extraordinary artists, fashion icons, and thinkers. Conversations in coffee houses and salons spurred advances in almost every area of human endeavour: science, politics, philosophy and the arts. The way we think about ourselves has been largely determined by Vienna’s most celebrated resident: Sigmund Freud. This is the story of Freud’s life, Vienna’s golden age, and an essential reappraisal of Freud’s legacy.

Jonathan Haidt shows how, between 2010 and 2015, childhood and adolescence was rewired. As teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps, time online soared while time engaging face-toface with friends and family plummeted, along with mental wellbeing. This book delves into the four fundamental ways in which a phonebased childhood disrupts development – sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation and addiction. Drawing on ancient wisdom and cutting-edge research, this eye-opening book is a life raft and a powerful call-to-arms.

$34.99, Abacus. Out March

$36.99, Allen Lane. Out March

Frank Tallis

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Jonathan Haidt

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15 Minute Vegan Katy Beskow

Access All Areas Barbara Charone

Astonish Me! Dominic Dromgoole

Beethoven’s Eroica James Hamilton-Paterson

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The Bomber Mafia Malcolm Gladwell

Camouflage Steve Parker

Cooking South of the Clouds Georgia Freedman

Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Niall Ferguson

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Easy Speedy Vegan Katy Beskow

The Heart of Things Richard Holloway

If This Is a Man/The Truce Primo Levi

The Last Days of Roger Federer Geoff Dyer

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The Listening Path Julia Cameron

Mantel Pieces Hilary Mantel

Meshi Katherine Tamiko Arguile

Middlemarch George Eliot

February-March 2024

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Naturally Nourished Sarah Britton

Patrick Melrose: The Novels Edward St Aubyn

Rebel Cities Mike Rapport

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Saving Freud Andrew Nagorski

So Shall You Reap Donna Leon

Symbols of Australia Melissa Harper and Richard White

Talking Cure Paula Marantz Cohen

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This Book Will Change Your Mind About Mental Health Nathan Filer

This Thing Called Life Neal Karlen

Tom Stoppard: A Life Hermione Lee

Wallpaper: The Ultimate Guide Charlotte Abrahams

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Waterloo Sunrise John Davis

The Plot Against America Philip Roth

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Ways of Hearing Dorothea Von Moltke

When There Were Birds Roy and Lesley Adkins

The World Beneath Their Feet Scott Ellsworth

Shop Talk

Reid All About It Summer reading 2023-24 Murder at the Fort

The Darkest Places

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Editors of Outside

Bob Marmion

This is a reissue of a book that was first published in 2016. It investigates the still unsolved murders of two servicemen, Army Driver Private Roy Willis and Gunner John Hulston, at the army garrison at Queenscliff, Victoria in 1942. Both were killed with the same army revolver. The author – a former detective – spent more than a decade researching the case. He made use of interviews with locals and soldiers. Military and police files on the cases are

(mysteriously?) missing. His book presents a range of theories involving black market operations, a possible commando exercise that went wrong, a Japanese landing and – in Hulston’s case – a mysterious uniformed “running man” who fired shots at searchers. The police at the time believed they knew the killer’s identity – as does the author – but were hampered by lack of formal evidence. Perhaps those missing official files may yet resurface.

ABN 87 000 357 317

A couple of years ago, as my small – but doubtless devoted – circle of readers will recall, I wrote an article entitled: “If You Go Down to the Woods Today…” This was after reading Jon Billman’s book The Cold Vanish, which investigates the (very) large number of people who go missing in US national parks in often (very) mysterious circumstances. That book grew out of an Outside magazine article. Now I discover we have an anthology from the magazine editors which is exactly what the subtitle describes. Three sections of Mysteries, Strange Phenomena and Wild Crimes give room for 27 contributors, including Caroline Alexander, Eric Hansen, Dean King, Megan Michelson and David Vann. In gripping, readable prose, the authors present their stories of misadventure, fate, eerie circumstances, derangement, wrong place/wrong time disasters, murder in hot – and cold – blood and some baffling, utterly unsettling episodes that defy ordinary categorisation.

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February-March 2024

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The Gleebooks Gleaner is published from February to November with contributions by staff, invited readers and writers. ISSSN: 1325 - 9288. Feedback and book reviews are welcome

TOP 10

BSEELLSERTS Fiction

Nonfiction

Children

1. The Bee Sting Paul Murray

1. Question 7 Richard Flanagan

1. Winter Turning Tui T Sutherland

2. Prophet Song Paul Lynch

2. Bright Shining Julia Baird

2. Heartstopper Volume 5 Alice Oseman

3. Lola in the Mirror Trent Dalton

3. Wifedom Anna Funder

3. Impossible Creatures Katherine Rundell

4. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens Shankari Chandran

4. Killing for Country David Marr

4. In the Rockpool Andrea Rowe

5. Small Things Like These Claire Keegan

5. The Palestine Laboratory Antony Loewenstein

6. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop Hwang Bo-reum

6. Quarterly Essay 92: The Great Divide Alan Kohler

5. Black Cockatoo with One Feather Blue Jodie McLeod

7. Edenglassie Melissa Lukashenko

7. The Creative Act Rick Ruben

8. Tom Lake Ann Patchett

8. Twelve Caesars Mary Beard

9. Good Material Dolly Alderton

9. Unruly David Mitchell

10. Green Dot Madeleine Gray

10. Atomic Habits James Clear

6. Percy Jackson & the Sea of Monsters Rick Riordan 7. Stuck Up & Stupid Kate & Angourie Rice 8. Artichoke to Zucchini Alice Oehr 9. Trees Victor Steffensen 10. Ask Aunty: Seasons Munya Andrews

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