Winter Catalogue 2024

Australian

If Everyone Cared Enough

Margaret Tucker

PB - $32.99

Tucker’s 1977 landmark autobiography If Everyone Cared was significantly altered for publication for the sake of a non-Indigenous readership. Here we see her story as she wrote it. We see her childhood memories of swimming and fishing, listening and learning, and the abrupt end to this time, when she was sent to a domestic training home for Aboriginal Girls. And we see her life as an activist that would earn her an MBE in 1968.

Madame Brussels

Barbara Minchinton

PB - $36.99

Left alone when her police-officer husband was sent to remote Victoria, Caroline Hodgson, soon known as Madame Brussels, turned her hand to running brothels. She would prove to be brilliantly entrepreneurial, becoming the most legendary brothel keeper in 19th-century Melbourne, riding through the boom years of the 1880s, the depression of the 1890s, and into the period of moral panic in the 1900s.

Fitzroy 1974

Robert Ashton

HB - $59.99

This republication of Ashton’s culturally significant record of Fitzroy in the early 1970s – originally published as Into the Hollow Mountains in 1974 – offers a rare glimpse into what was one of Australia’s most bohemian enclaves. Ashton’s photographs are accompanied by writing from local writers and artists, including Helen Garner, and is now supplemented with new writing from novelist Gregory Day.

Black Witness

Amy McQuire

PB - $34.99

From one of this country’s leading journalists comes a collection of fierce and powerful essays proving why the media needs to believe Black witnesses and showcasing ways that journalism can be used to hold the powerful to account and make the world a more equitable place. This is a searing indictment of the media’s failures in reporting Indigenous affairs.

Rock and Tempest

Patricia Collins

PB - $34.99

On Christmas Day 1974, Australia awoke to the news of the near total destruction of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy, in what was the country’s worst natural disaster to date. Stationed in the city with the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service, Collins not only lived through Tracy but was part of the massive clean-up effort. Here her own experiences are accompanied by those of others, relaying the tragedy, courage and survival.

A Very Secret Trade

Cassandra Pybus

PB - $34.99

In the 19th century, collectors and museum curators in Europe were fascinated by Tasmania, cultivating contacts who could supply specimens, including skeletons of the thylacine and the platypus. But the possibility of extinction also had the scientific community scrambling for human exhibits, with many eminent figures involved in the clandestine trade. Pybus uncovers this dark and carefully hidden history.

You Are Here

David Nicholls

PB - $32.99

Marnie is stuck. Stuck working alone in her London flat, battling a life that often feels like it’s passing her by. Michael is coming undone. Reeling from his wife’s departure, he’s increasingly reclusive. When a persistent mutual friend brings them together, Marnie and Michael suddenly find themselves alone on an epic walk and on the precipice of a new friendship that they must depend on to survive.

Mrs Gulliver

Valerie Martin

PB - $32.99

1954, and prostitution is legal in the tropical haven of Verona Island. Here, among gangsters and corrupt lawmen, Lila runs her brothel with discretion. When the son of a wealthy judge patronises her establishment and falls madly in love with 19-yearold Carita, Lila immediately mistrusts him. Carita, however, is fearless, headstrong and a force of nature who Lila is always several steps behind.

This Strange Eventful History

Claire Messud

PB - $34.99

June 1940. As Paris falls to the Germans, Gaston Cassar – honourable servant of France, devoted husband and father, currently posted as naval attaché in Salonica – bids farewell to his beloved family, placing his faith in God that they will be reunited after the war. But escaping the violence of that cataclysm is not the same as emerging unscathed, and the fractures through the family will forever run deep.

Table For Two

Amor Towles

PB - $34.99

With six New York stories and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood, this collection brings Towles’ signature wit and sophistication to the shorter form. The New York stories consider fateful consequences that spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics at the heart of modern marriages, while the novella continues the story of Evelyn Ross from Towles’ novel Rules of Civility after her arrival in LA.

All Fours

Miranda July

PB - $32.99

A semi-famous artist in her midforties announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY in this cerebral, comic novel. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and begins a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey, one of erotic and psychological recreation.

Blue Sisters

Coco Mellors

PB - $34.99

Three sisters are reeling after the unexpected lost of their beloved fourth sister. When, a year after the death, the three of them must reunite in New York to stop the sale of their childhood home, they find that it’s only by returning to each other that they can navigate their grief, addiction and heartbreak, and learn to fall in love with life again.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles

Rufi Thorpe

PB - $32.99

Margo Millet’s got money troubles. But at 20, alone with a baby, what Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon her plan to start an OnlyFans is ready. Help arrives in the form of her live-action, role-playing flatmate Suzie. Soon Margo is an online phenomenon. Could this be the answer to all of her problems, or does internet fame come at too high a price?

Long Island

Colm Tóibín

PB - $34.99

It’s the spring of 1976 and Eilis, an Irish woman now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. One day, an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis. Her husband, she learns, has impregnated the man’s wife, and when that child is born, he will not raise it, but leave it with Eilis. What she does with this news is at the heart of this novel.

Parade

Rachel Cusk

PB - $32.99

A writer hides. A mother dies. A woman is attacked. Once again Cusk creates a new documentary voice that operates on the border between fiction and reality, artfully braiding imagined characters with the actual, sensation with the philosophical, to reconsider how we experience the world and each other.

Help Wanted

Adelle Waldman

HB - $34.99

At a superstore in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every day at 3.55am. Under the red-eyed scrutiny of their barely competent boss, they empty delivery trucks, stock the shelves, and stagger home (or to another poorly paid job). But when the store manager announces he’s leaving, everything changes. The staff now see a way out, and together set an extravagant plan in motion.

The Heart in Winter

Kevin Barry

PB - $32.99

Butte, Montana, October 1891. A thunderbolt love affair sparks between Tom, a young poet and fearsome degenerate, and Polly, the new bride of the devout mine captain. They strike west on a stolen horse, moving through the bad-lands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly exist within the idyll of wild romance. But a posse of deranged gunmen are closing fast in hot pursuit of the lovers.

Misrecognition

Madison Newbound

PB - $32.99

In the wake of an ended relationship, Elsa scrolls aimlessly through the internet in search of meaning. Faithfully, her screen provides a new obsession: a charismatic young actor. As if she had conjured him, the actor arrives in her hometown. When her obsession shifts to his frequent dinner companion, an androgynous person called Sam, a confusing connection develops and Elsa is forced to examine old patterns.

The Horse

Willy Vlautin

PB - $32.99

AI Ward is several years into an isolated stint living on old mining land in Nevada. One morning, the horse arrives outside his home, seemingly unable to feed itself or stay safe from coyote attacks. Intercut with AI’s present-day story are episodes from his long life as a songwriter and guitarist, struggling to survive the reality of a life devoid of the glitz and glamour of mainstream success.

The Voyage Home

Pat Barker

PB - $34.99

After ten violent years, the war is over. Troy is in smouldering ruins. Among the women captured by the victorious Greeks is Cassandra, the legendary prophetess. Enslaved as concubine to King Agamemnon, she’s plagued by visions of his death – and her own. Meanwhile, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, awaits their return having spent the decade plotting retribution for his sacrificing of their daughter to the gods.

Long Island Compromise

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

PB - $32.99

In 1980, Carl Fletcher, a wealthy businessman, is kidnapped from outside his Long Island home. Before a ransom is paid and he’s returned to his wife and children and the ongoing saga that is the American dream, he’s horribly beaten. Forty years later, the substrate of trauma resurfaces when it becomes apparent that Carl has been quietly investigating his kidnapping for all these years.

There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak

PB - $34.99

Having used his brilliant memory to escape poverty in Victorian London, one book sends Arthur across the seas. In 2014 Turkey, Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people. In 2018 London, brokenhearted Zaleekhah moves to a houseboat to escape her marriage. Three characters are entwined by two rivers and one ancient epic poem.

Tell Me Everything

Elizabeth Strout

HB - $34.99

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives nearby. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge. They spend afternoons together telling the life stories of people that would otherwise be overlooked and forgotten.

Scaffolding

Lauren Elkin

HB - $36.99

In 2019, Anna is processing a recent miscarriage and spending her days obsessing over renovating the kitchen while her husband, David, works in London. Meanwhile, in 1972, Florence and Henry are redoing their kitchen. Florence is finishing her degree while hoping to get pregnant, but Henry isn’t sure he’s ready for fatherhood. One apartment in northeast Paris, two couples almost 50 years apart.

Australian Fiction

All the Beautiful Things You Love

Jonathan Seidler

PB - $34.99

When Enzo suddenly walks out on Elly after ten years together, she finds herself marooned in an expensive East London flat, surrounded by all their belongings. She can’t bear to look at the objects they collected together. Now she’s listing it all on Marketplace. Elly thinks that selling these items to strangers will heal her devastated heart. But she’s about to get a lot more than she bargained for.

Safe Haven

Shankari Chandran

PB - $34.99

Arriving in Australia seeking asylum, Fina dedicates herself to aiding the refugees who are held in Port Camden, a remote island outpost. Over time she settles into a life within a community of like-minded people. When Fina is threatened with deportation, the mystery of the suspicious death of a security officer becomes tied to her fate – and the secrets she reveals will divide the town and the nation.

Thunderhead

Miranda Darling

HB - $29.99

Winona Dalloway had no idea that by the end of the day everything in her world would be forever altered. On the outside, she’s a seemingly unremarkable young mother unobtrusively and quietly going about her many tasks. But her mind is wild and precise, teeming with voices. Over the course of a single day, we’re to encounter the storm that’s brewing within and around her.

Bright Objects

Ruby Todd

PB - $32.99

January 1997. In the small town of Jericho, NSW, Sylvia Knight is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. As a rare comet soon to be visible above Jericho begins to brighten, visitors flock to the town. While everyone is looking to the night sky for answers, her quest to uncover her husband’s killer will unearth long-held secrets with far-reaching consequences.

The End of the Morning

Charmian Clift

PB - $34.99

During the years of the Great Depression, Cressida Morley and her eccentric family live in a cottage on the edge of a wild beach. As outsiders in their community, they rant, argue, read books and play music. Yet as Cressida moves beyond childhood, she starts to outgrow the place that once seemed the centre of the world. As she plans her escape, she asks herself who she’ll become.

Only the Astronauts

Ceridwen Dovey

PB - $34.99

Adrift in outer space, a motley crew of human-made objects tell their tales, making real history sweeter and stranger. Starman, a lovelorn mannequin orbiting the Sun in his cherry-red car, pines for his creator. The first sculpture ever taken to the Moon is possessed by the spirit of Neil Armstrong. These object-astronauts and others are not high priests of the universe but something a little more otherworldly.

Australian Fiction

Imperial Harvest

Bruce Pascoe

PB - $32.99

Left with one eye and one arm, Yen Se has lost everything to the Khan’s brutality and violent crusade. Yen Se travels with the theatre of war but exists outside of it, moving randomly across Europe with a loose band of survivors. They are men who think of survival as resistance, and women who dare to dream of peace.

Hurdy Gurdy

Jenny Ackland

PB - $32.99

In a near-future Australia, the world has changed. A small caravan travels the countryside performing for dwindling audiences while, in the distance, a reverend and his nun-like companion rail against alcohol, adultery and abortion. The two groups are on an ideological collision course in a landscape altered by time and hubris, while overhead a space mission has gone wrong.

If You Go

Alice Robinson

PB - $34.99

When Esther wakes with a breathing tube down her throat, she has no idea where she is or how she got there. In terrible physical condition, Esther is tended to by Grace, the only other person in the building. Desperate to return to her young kids and growing increasingly suspicious of Grace, Esther takes drastic action to escape. But there are certain facts about her situation that she will need to uncover first.

A Language of Limbs

Dylin Hardcastle

PB - $34.99

The first love of a teenage girl is a powerful thing, particularly when the object of that desire is her best friend, also a girl. On a quiet summer night in Newcastle, 1972, a choice must be made between acting upon these desires and suppressing them. Over the following three decades, these two lives almost intersect in pivotal moments, the distance between them at times drawing so thin the two nearly collide.

The Honeyeater

Jessie Tu

PB - $32.99

Fay, a young academic and translator, receives the shattering news that her former lover has died. She seeks solace from her mentor, Samantha, who offers Fay a spot at a prestigious translation conference in Taipei, but her mother pleads with Fay, telling her that she mustn’t travel in Taiwan during ghost month. When a shocking allegation is made, is Fay's decision to protect Samantha simply an exercise in power?

Woo Woo

Ella Baxter

PB - $32.99

Sabine’s exhibition is opening soon and, as her gallerist says, ‘Hell is an artist three days before their exhibition opens.’ But this isn’t the only thing causing her to melt down. With exhibition day drawing closer, so too does the man who’s been stalking her. His approaches become increasingly threatening, and Sabine’s fear amplifies, transforming into something primal. And then things start to get really strange.

Crime

A Refiner’s Fire

Donna Leon

PB - $34.99

When two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing in one of Venice’s campi, the son of Monforte, a local hero, is implicated. Commissario Guido Brunetti soon has reason to believe that Monforte may not be such a hero after all. This seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of Brunetti’s colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate his attentions.

Sanctuary

Garry Disher

PB - $34.99

Grace is a thief, and a good one at that. She was taught by experts and she’s been doing it since she was a child. But this solitary life of watchfulness and mistrust is not the one she wants. Lying low after a run-in with an old associate, she walks into Erin Mandel’s rural antiques shop and sees a chance for a different future. But someone is looking for Erin. And someone’s looking for Grace, too.

All the Colours of the Dark

Chris Whitaker

PB - $32.99

A local teenager, Patch, is abducted. The town of Monta Clare is shattered, but nobody more so than his friend, Saint. For an immeasurable time, Patch lies alone in a pitch-black room. But then he feels a hand in his own. It’s Grace, and the world she describes pulls them from their darkness. When he escapes, there’s no trace of her existence. And so begins his search, just as Saint is out to hunt down the abductor.

Murder in Punch Lane

Jane Sullivan

PB - $32.99

Melbourne, 1868. When dazzling theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, Lola Sanchez, everyone except Lola believes it was suicide by laudanum overdose. When a journalist publishes a compassionate obituary about her friend, Lola seeks his help. Neither are prepared for the truths they will uncover about the powers that rule Melbourne – or the consequences for their own lives.

It Takes a Town

Aoife Clifford

PB - $34.99

A celebrity since she was a child, glamorous Vanessa Walton is back on the front page for all the wrong reasons – after a terrible storm, she was found dead at the bottom of her stairs. At first her death seems to be a simple accident, but anonymous letters are discovered that suggest otherwise. As the police begin to investigate, secrets are exposed and friendships unravel.

Highway 13

Fiona McFarlane

PB - $32.99

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged with a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation and brings resolution to the victims’ families, but the murders are only a starting point. From the killer’s home town in country Australia to the Tropical North, and to Texas and Rome, true crime journalists and podcasters will spread and analyse each brutal detail, but at what cost?

All the Missing Children

Zahid Gamieldien

PB - $34.99

A working class mother is desperate to reconnect with her children in the aftermath of tragedy. But they’ve vanished. A suspended detective uncovers disquieting clues, but is pulled away by a dangerous cold case. A recovering addict finds peace with birds, only to have his life upended by violence. While a woman who wants to find out who killed one of her animals is faced with increasingly unsettling answers.

Smoke

Michael Brissenden

PB - $34.99

After a brutal wildfire tears through the town of Jasper, a body is discovered in a shed. It looks like an open-and-shut case of accidental death, until it becomes apparent that the victim was locked in from the outside. Detective Markov is convinced the man was murdered opportunistically, but as she looks closer she discovers the corruption of her hometown, and the consequences of exposing it.

17 Years Later

J.P. Pomare

PB - $32.99

The slaughter of the Primrose family shocked the nation. Their young livein chef was swiftly charged and brought to justice, but the brutality left deep scars in Cambridge. Years later, true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott lures prison psychologist

T.K. Phillips, a once fierce campaigner for an appeal, back into the fight. As new evidence emerges, no one’s innocence or safety can be assured.

The Creeper

Margaret Hickey

PB - $34.99

For the last decade, Edenville, in Victoria’s high country, has been haunted by the horrific murders of five hikers whose bodies were found near that of a bushland loner with a reputation for stalking campers in an apparent murder-suicide. But as the anniversary of the massacre draws near, Detective Constable Sally White begins to discover that each of the hikers has a murky past.

Red River Road

Anna Downes

PB - $34.99

On the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her campervan further into the wild north, Katy is soon pulled into a complicated web of secrets, lies, myths and stories that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her sister.

Middle of the Night

Riley Sager

PB - $32.99

One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his friend, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a lawn in a quiet New Jersey cul-de-sac. In the morning, Ethan awoke to find their tent slashed and Billy missing. Thirty years later, Ethan has returned, still desperate for answers. He soon notices strange things happening on the street at night and that someone is prowling the cul-de-sac under the cover of darkness.

Biography

Splinters

Leslie Jamison

HB - $34.99

In a blend of memoir and criticism, Jamison turns her attention to some of the most intimate relationships of her life – her consuming love for her young daughter, and a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope – to examine what it means for a woman to be many things at once: a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover.

Knife

Salman Rushdie

PB - $36.99

Rushdie was onstage in New York, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man rushed towards him with a knife. The author takes us through the horrific event, its aftermath, and his psychological and physical recovery made possible by the support of loved ones, medical staff, and readers across the world.

The Uptown Local

Cory Leadbeater

PB - $32.99

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Leadbeater found himself the personal assistant to Joan Didion, a titan of literature. In the nine years that followed, he shared Joan’s rarefied world of blazing intellect as well as her generous friendship and mentorship. All the while, unknown to the world around him, he was spiralling towards addiction and depression.

My Family and Other Rock Stars

Tiffany Murray

PB - $34.99

It’s the late 1970s and Tiff lives with her mum, Joan, at Rockfield, the iconic recording studios. This place of legend, where some of the most famous rock albums of all time were recorded, is the background to a freewheeling, ever-changing whirlwind of a childhood. The one constant throughout for her is Joan, who holds together an unconventional life and family in the most unlikely of places.

Everything/Nothing/Someone

Alice Carrière

PB - $34.99

Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as a child living in an adult’s world steeped in the glamour, loneliness, privilege and neglect by her artist parents. When a dissociative disorder erases her identity and overzealous doctors medicate her further away from herself, she begins to lose her grasp on reality.

The Friday Afternoon Club

Griffin Dunne

PB - $34.99

At nine, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At 13, he attended his aunt Joan Didion’s legendary LA party. In his early 20s, he shared an apartment with his friend Carrie Fisher while she was filming some sci-fi movie. Despite the rarefied cast and remarkable occurrences, however, this is a family story filled with tenderness and humour.

Hazzard and Harrower

Brigitta Olubas

PB - $39.99

Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower shared a correspondence that would span four decades, writing of their daily lives, of impediments to writing, their reading, and more. And they wrote about Hazzard’s mother, for whose care Harrower took increasing – and increasingly reluctant – responsibility. These letters form an account of two literary luminaries, their complex relationship and their times.

Grief is for People

Sloane Crosley

PB - $24.99

One day, Crosley’s New York City apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery. When her closest friend Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels her on a wild quest to right the unrightable, and to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll brought on by the pandemic.

Metamorphoses

Karolina Watroba

HB - $39.99

One hundred years after Kafka’s death, Watroba asks who was this enigmatic man whose novels furnished us with such forceful new metaphors and ways of thinking about the modern world. Drawing together literary scholarship and responses from readers across the decades, she creates a nonchronological journey through the author’s life as well as a new way of exploring literary history.

Alphabetical Diaries

Sheila Heti

PB - $24.99

Over a ten-year period, Heti kept a record of her thoughts and life. She then arranged them into alphabetical order, creating a poetic tapestry that, over time, returns to the same subjects, thereby broadening and deepening her encounters with each. This is yet another stylistic reinvention from this uncompromising author, and one that sits within a rich tradition of experimental diary writing.

Rural Hours

Harriet Baker

HB - $55

Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Rosamond Lehmann all escaped to the countryside in times of creative paucity. Baker shows us how, invigorated by new landscapes and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerged from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment. In the country, they embarked on new experiments in form, in feeling, and in living.

Young Hawke

David Day

HB - $49.99

Day provides a fresh perspective on the formative years of the man who would become our most popular prime minister. Based on decades of research and interviews, we encounter Hawke’s difficult childhood, his time as a Sunday School teacher, his rise to become a powerful union leader and his eventual decision to enter politics, as well as his alcoholism, womanising and links to shadowy characters.

History

The Demon Of Unrest

Erik Larson

PB - $37.99

Larson brings to life the pivotal five months between Lincoln’s fluky election in a tight race and the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was powerless to stop one southern state after another from seceding. With slavery fuelling the conflict, the passions of North and South came to focus on Fort Sumter, a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor, which the confederates would soon begin shelling.

City of Light, City of Shadows

Mike Rapport

PB - $34.99

Paris’ Belle Epoque is remembered as a golden age of cultural flourishing and political progress. It was also an era of social and religious unrest, arguments over women’s emancipation and violent clashes over what it meant to be French. Rapport weaves stories of splendour and suffering, delight and agony, offering an account of the shadows cast across the City of Light.

The Cleopatras

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

PB - $34.99

The true story of Cleopatra VII is even more compelling than the myth. But there were seven Cleopatras, each powerhouses of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, dominating the normally patriarchal world of politics and warfare until Egypt was subsumed into the Roman Empire. Their ruthless focus on dominance resulted in extraordinary acts of betrayal, violence, and murder in the most malfunctional dynasty in history.

Empireworld

Sathnam Sanghera

PB - $36.99

There are some 2.6 billion inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire’s influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound. Travelling the globe to trace Britain’s international legacies, Sanghera demonstrates just how deeply British imperialism is baked into our world.

Uncivilised

Subhadra Das

PB - $34.99

Western civilisation is a powerful brand, full of accepted wisdoms that we rarely question. But if we take a closer look at these ideas, it seems they are not all they are cracked up to be. Science historian Das explores ten founding ideas of Western civilisation, uncovering their flaws and urging us to look at the world afresh.

The Light of Asia

Christopher Harding

HB - $65

From Marco Polo onwards, Asia has been both a place of genuine fascination and equally genuine failures of comprehension by the West. Harding explores the varied and entertaining history of the many ways in which Asia has shaped European and North American culture over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters, and the central importance of this vexed, often confused relationship.

Iron and Blood

Peter H. Wilson

PB - $39.99

Wilson examines military, political, technological and economic change over five centuries to tell the story of the German-speaking lands. The Germans' military impact on the rest of Europe has been immense. If there has been one constant, he argues, it's the sense of being beset by powerful enemies – France, Russia or Turkey. This sense has led to relentless unwinnable wars and, in the 20th century, moral catastrophe.

House of Lilies

Justine Firnhaber-Baker

HB - $65

Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetians became the most powerful monarchy of the Middle Ages. Consolidating a fragmented realm that eventually stretched from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, they were at the centre of some of the most dramatic and far-reaching episodes in European history. Firnhaber-Baker tells the definitive history of the dynasty that forged France – and Europe – as we know it.

Arise, England

Caroline Burt and Richard Partington

HB - $55

Between 1199 and 1399, English politics was high drama. These two centuries witnessed savage political blood-letting as well as international warfare, economic crises, peasant uprisings and a devastating national pandemic. Burt and Partington use the six Plantagenet kings who ruled during these two centuries as a foundation to reevaluate England’s emergent statehood.

The Damascus Events

Eugene Rogan

HB - $75

Rogan recreates the lost world of the Middle East under Ottoman rule. Damascus was a culturally rich city until reforms favouring the minority Christian community at the expense of the Muslim majority raised tensions across the empire. In 1860, ferocious outbreaks of disorder across the Levant resulted in the massacre of thousands of Christians in Damascus, leaving the region in ruins.

The Umbrella Murder

Ulrik Skotte

PB - $36.99

In London, September 1978, exiled Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was murdered in broad daylight on Waterloo Bridge with what appeared to be a poison-tipped umbrella. This would become the most infamous unsolved killing of the Cold War. Following a decades-long hunt, Skotte comes face-to-face with the assassin and discovers who has been protecting him.

The Muse of History

Oswyn Murray

HB - $65

The study of ancient Greek history has been central to the Western conception of history since the Renaissance. Murray traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation over the last three centuries, in which each generation has reinterpreted the Greeks in the light of their contemporary world, and offers a new interpretation of Greek historiography from the Enlightenment to the present.

Science and Nature

Deep Water

James Bradley

PB - $36.99

The ocean has shaped and sustained life for billions of years. Its vast waters are alive with meaning, and connect every living thing on Earth. Weaving together science, history and personal experience, Bradley offers vital new ways of understanding not just humanity’s relationship with the planet, but with our past and – perhaps most importantly – our future.

Challenger

Adam Higginbotham

PB - $36.99

On 28 January 1986, just 73 seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Based on extensive archival research and meticulous original reporting, this book follows the stories of a handful of central protagonists through the years leading up to the accident, the tragedy itself, and the investigation that followed.

Alien Earths

Lisa Kaltenegger

HB - $55

As founding director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute, astrophysicist Kaltenegger built an interdisciplinary team of scientists to arrive at a way to search for distant life. With wit and enthusiasm, she demonstrates how we can creatively analyse Earth's history and biosphere to inform the search, taking us to planets covered in lava, lonely wanderers lost in space, and others that are contenders for fostering life.

Why Animals Talk

Arik Kershenbaum

HB - $45

In this scientific journey through the untamed world of animal communication – from the majestic howls of wolves to the melodic clicks of dolphins – we see that these diverse and sometimes bizarre expressions hold secrets that we’re just beginning to decipher. Kershenbaum draws on extensive research and observation to explain the science of animal communication.

The Forest Wars

David Lindenmayer

PB - $34.99

Since colonisation, Australians have been frantically logging our native forests as if our lives depended on it. Lindenmayer exposes the unsettling truth about the tax-payer-funded ecological disaster that’s unfolding in our tall eucalyptus forests, and the deceit and intimidation by an alliance of state forestry, the timber industry, and the unions.

Love Triangle

Matt Parker

PB - $36.99

Parker is on a mission to prove why we should all have a lot more love for triangles. To make his point, he conducts a series of hare-brained experiments. Soon, these experiments begin to reveal a genuinely important truth: triangles are the hidden pattern beneath the surface of the contemporary world, used in everything from GPS to CGI and Spotify streaming.

Counting

Benjamin Wardhaugh

PB - $36.99

What has counting meant to different cultures and different individuals? Wardhaugh explores stories from all over the world and from every period of human history to show the ways counting has been continually reinvented over time. He illustrates how counting has shaped culture, and culture has shaped counting, in a vast story as tangled as the story of human culture.

Living on Earth

Peter Godfrey-Smith

PB - $34.99

In the conclusion to Godfrey-Smith’s three-part exploration of the origins of intelligence on Earth, he asks how has life shaped and been shaped by our planet. He visits Rwandan gorillas and Australian bowerbirds, returns to coral reefs and octopus dens, considers the impact of language and writing, and weighs the responsibilities our unique powers bring with them.

Science and Nature

John Büsst

Iain McCalman

PB - $36.99

Melbourne artist John Büsst moved to Bedarra Island in North Queensland and underwent an extraordinary transformation to become one of Australia’s most successful conservationists. In the 1960s and 70s, he led campaigns to protect two of Australia’s most important and endangered environments, saving lowland rainforests from destruction and the Great Barrier Reef from reckless resource mining.

Vector

Robyn Arianrhod

PB - $44.99

The stars of this book, vectors and tensors, are unlikely celebrities. They enabled physicists and mathematicians to think in a new way: Einstein to predict the curving of space-time, Dirac to create quantum field theory, and Noether to connect mathematical symmetry. Across a 5000-year journey through human imagination, this mathematical construct has dramatically changed scientific discovery.

Turning to Stone

Marcia Bjornerud

PB - $34.99

Rocks are the record of our creative planet reinventing itself over the last four billion years. Nothing is ever lost, just transformed. Earth is not just a passive backdrop, or a source of resources. Rocks are full of a wisdom that somewhere along the way we’ve forgotten how to hear. This is a study of rocks, the stories they can tell us and the various ways they continue to shape and influence our lives.

Cowpuppy

Gregory Berns

PB - $36.99

Berns, a neuroscientist who has extensively studied dogs, applies his scientific eye to the cognitive and emotional lives of cows. When he and his wife buy a small farm and populate it with a handful of the animals, Berns discovers they have impressive memories, are capable of forming lasting bonds with people, and are highly attuned to our feelings. He soon bonds with his herd, but particularly with BB, his cowpuppy.

Critical Thinking

The Performer

Richard Sennett

HB - $55

Sennett explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics and everyday experience, with a focus primarily on bodily and physical dimensions, rather than on language. Drawing on history and sociology as well as from his own life, Sennett examines the evolution of performance and the way it’s fundamental to human expression and experience.

The Stoic Mindset

Mark Tuitert

HB - $34.99

During the 2010 Olympic speed skating final, Tuitert wasn’t thinking about winning, but about the Stoics. Stoicism is a philosophy grounded in striving toward unbiased thinking, self-betterment through virtues, and a focus on only that which lies in our power to control. After two decades of applying this philosophy, and seeing its benefits, Tuitert has distilled Stoicism and his personal experience into ten lessons.

Who’s Afraid of Gender?

Judith Butler

HB - $55

Butler confronts the attacks on gender that have become central to right-wing movements today, asking what exactly is so frightening. She carefully examines how ‘gender’ has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations and transexclusionary feminists. By teasing out the concrete ways in which this phantasm works, she's able to imagine new possibilities for freedom and solidarity.

Detachable Penis

Sam Elkin

PB - $29.99

Elkin relates his journey from lesbian to transgender lawyer in the aftermath of the marriage equality postal survey. As the inaugural lawyer of Victoria’s queer law service, Elkin was immersed in debates around trans inclusion in sport and children’s access to puberty blockers. He offers an honest account of transitioning, hormones, and the fear of lesbian erasure in a new world of gender affirmation.

Peripathetic

Cher Tan

PB - $34.99

Tan writes about shit jobs. About being who you are and who you aren’t online. About living on the interstices. About wanting. About the hyperreal. About weirdness. Tan’s essays are as non-linear as her life. Paying homage to outsider artists, punks, drop-outs and rogue philosophers, this book is about the resistance of orthodoxies – even when resistance feels impossible.

Excitable Boy

Dominic Gordon

PB - $29.99

Gordon’s youth was spent amongst the rougher elements of inner Melbourne. In this immersive retelling of this time, he takes us through the many things – which appealed to him largely for the great risk they posed –that came to replace his childish innocence. Across a series of essays, we see Gordon running across roofs, riding the top of high-speed trains, seeking methamphetamines, and evading predators.

Critical Thinking

Like Love

Maggie Nelson

HB - $45

This series of essays, reviews, profiles, remembrances, tributes and conversations with artists is, ultimately, an investigation into what it means to be a critic, both of the arts and of the world itself. With pieces from across 20 years, Nelson characteristically takes on such themes as subversion, transgression and perversity, while writing on the likes of Prince, Carolee Schneemann, and Kara Walker.

Philosophy of the Home

Emanuele Coccia

PB - $24.99

The buildings we inhabit are of immense psychological and cultural significance. They play a decisive role in human flourishing and their walls, windows and doorways guide our relationships with others, with ourselves and with the outer world. Coccia shows how the architecture of home has shaped our psyches and our societies, before leading us towards a more creative and ecological way of dwelling.

All Things Are Too Small

Becca Rothfeld

PB - $32.99

In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues across these essays, economic security allows for free aesthetic experimentation. We have it flipped, compensating for economic inequality by attempting to enforce equality on love and art. She explains how the embrace of minimalism has impoverished us, how we’ve suffocated eroticism, and why our novels are filled with protagonists satisfying their appetites in ways we cannot.

The Garden Against Time

Olivia Laing

HB - $44.99

In 2020, Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work drew her into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens. Moving between real and imagined gardens, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth. The result is an exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of gardens.

On Kim Scott

Tony Birch

HB - $22.99

Noongar writer Kim Scott has won the Miles Franklin Award twice for his novels. In this essay, Tony Birch shows how Scott uses fiction as a pathway to truth. We meet a writer who 'inhabits a range of guises ... to interrogate the complex and messy frontier history of colonial encounters'. The result is 'new stories' for the nation. This, says Birch, is the work that Kim Scott has been doing for many years.

Our Familiars

Anne Coombs

PB - $29.99

How do animals guard, serve, and care for us? And how and why do we love them so much? Before her death in late 2021, Coombs researched the topic extensively and reflected deeply on her own experiences with animals. The animals in her life were privy to her deepest emotions, to her despair, her sorrow, and her love. This is her meditation on the meaning of animals in our lives.

Politics and Economics

The Everything War

Dana Mattioli

PB - $36.99

For over 20 years, Amazon was the quintessential American success story. But the company has been far from benevolent. Having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives and competitors to small business owners – Mattioli explores how Amazon grew into one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world, and how this has become the most consequential business story of our times.

The Situation Room

George Stephanopoulos

PB - $34.99

No room better defines American power and its role in the world than the White House Situation Room. Yet, no space is as shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Detailing lucky breaks and disasters narrowly avoided, Stephanopoulos takes readers through dramatic turning points in a dozen presidential administrations.

Growth

Daniel Susskind

PB - $36.99

Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from poverty and made our lives healthier and longer. The unfettered pursuit of growth now defines economic life globally. Yet prosperity has come at the cost of deepening inequality and environmental destruction. In this sweeping analysis, Susskind argues that the solution isn’t abandoning growth so much as redirecting it to what matters.

The Road to Freedom

Joseph Stiglitz

PB - $36.99

Despite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism, whereby less regulation engenders economic and moral freedom, retains its grip on the public mind and on governmental policy the world over. Stiglitz asks whose freedom it is we ought to be thinking about, what happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s, and what alternative would create true human flourishing and wellbeing.

Deterring Armageddon

Peter Apps

PB - $36.99

Apps takes the reader from backroom deals that led to NATO’s creation, through the Cold War, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the war in Afghanistan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This tale of tension, danger, rivalry, big personalities and high-stakes military and diplomatic posturing looks ahead to what might be the most dangerous era NATO has ever faced.

Adventures in Democracy

Erica Benner

HB - $55

Drawing on personal experience as a child in postwar Japan and later working in post-communist Poland, as well as on the deep history of selfruling peoples – from ancient Greece and Renaissance Florence to the modern day – Brenner thinks through difficulties that face us today. She asks how democratic ideals fair against a world obsessed with competition and wealth, and how the powerful can be held to account.

Il Dolce Far Niente

Lucy Laucht

HB - $70

There’s a special essence to summer in southern Italy – the pleasure of living simply, of lazing on the beach, perching on the rocks overlooking the sea, and relishing moments of escape and calm. With chapters organised by destination and framed by lessons essential to that place – such as ‘Find Peace in Chaos’ in Napoli – Laucht teaches us how we can bring some of the magic of Italian summers into our daily lives.

The Lost Paths

Jack Cornish

HB - $45

Hundreds of thousands of miles of paths connect communities across England and Wales. They are an inheritance from the past, revealing how ancestors interacted with and shaped their landscapes. But thousands of miles are still missing from our maps. Exploring the deep history of these pathways, Cornish uncovers how this millennia-old network was created and has evolved.

Untold Paris

John Baxter

HB - $39.99

Paris local John Baxter knows the city as well as anyone, and here he’s the guide to the city of light you’ve long sought out, to its curious landmarks, obscure events, literary luminaries as well as the remnants from the political and artistic revolutions that have long captivated the world. The first-time visitor will come to know this incredible city, and the seasoned traveller left with new insights into the city they love.

Globetrotting

Duncan Minshull

HB - $39.99

UK’s ‘laureate of walking’ brings together the work of more than 50 walker-writers who have travelled the world’s seven continents by foot. From the 1500s to the present day comes a memorable band of explorers and adventurers, scientists and missionaries, pleasure-seekers and literary drifters recalling their experiences and asking themselves a compelling question: why travel this way in the first place?

The Mountains Are High

Alec Ash

HB - $39.99

Hoping to find space and perspective, Ash left his life as a journalist in Beijing and moved to Dali, a rural valley in China’s Yunnan province, centred around a lake overlooked by Cang Mountain. Dali is a richly diverse community with one shared goal: to reject the worst of modernity and live in tune with the natural world, away from authoritarianism. Ash charts his life amongst his new fascinating neighbours.

Running with Pirates

Kári Gíslason

PB - $34.99

At 18 years old, Gíslason arrives on the island of Corfu after a life-altering encounter with his father in Iceland. Looking for adventure, he decides to stay after meeting ‘the Pirate’, a mysterious Greek stranger – only to find himself eventually fleeing the island, leaving behind a debt he promises to repay. Three decades later, now a father of two teenage sons, he returns to Corfu with his family.

House and Garden

SOL

Nic Holden

HB - $60

The sun-drenched Mediterranean paradise of Mallorca is having a design moment, with a new wave of designers fostering nostalgic respect for tradition. Whether by the beach or in the mountains, these architectural houses and lush gardens traverse the rustic and the contemporary, the vibrant and the neutral. Photographs are accompanied by intimate interviews with architects and residents.

Cape to Bluff

Simon Devitt, Andrea Stevens and Luke Scott

HB - $79.99

With snow-capped alps, vast lakes and breezy ocean in such close proximity, the natural environment of Aotearoa / New Zealand inspires spectacular and skilful architecture. Devitt brings us 30 modern dwellings by leading architects from across the country. Whether it’s a crescentmoon-shaped bach (little cabin) in Tutukaka, or a bivvy house overlooking Lake Wakatipu, each project is rich in poetry and drama.

Tasmanian Gardens

Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett

HB - $79.99

This reimagining of what a garden can and should be goes beyond perfect lawns and beautiful borders to the people, places, and stories of this rich island state. From vast coastal headlands and kelp forests to gorgeous flower farms and gnome collections, the gardens of Lutruwita/Tasmania are as diverse as they are delightful.

Visionary

Claire Takacs

HB - $70

Photographer Claire Takacs and landscape architect Giacomo Guzzon introduce stunning private and public gardens from around the world that have addressed both sustainability and climate change with outstanding results. Be inspired by the new ways garden and landscape designers are thinking about planting and garden design in the face of climate change.

Modern Heritage

Cameron Bruhn

HB - $79.99

Australian houses built from the 1920s to the 1940s offer a triumphant meeting of styles, embracing elements of Tudor, Spanish Mission, Art Deco and everything in between. This book surveys 20 homes that embody the period’s vibrant architectural eclecticism, weaving cultural context with new insights.

The Gardening Book

Monty Don

HB - $59.99

In this refreshingly accessible guide to building a garden that best serves your needs and enhances your lifestyle, Monty Don gives you the basics on how to grow over 100 popular flowers, foods, shrubs, houseplants and more. Everything you could possibly need to know for each plant is provided across a clear and concise single spread for easy use.

New Coastal

Ingrid Weir

HB - $60

Weir introduces us to the modern-day incarnation of the renegade spirits who have always been drawn to the sea. Divided into chapters including Remote Coastal, Bohemian Coastal, and City Coastal, she shows how to create a beachy look for yourself, no matter where you live.

Glenn Murcutt Unbuilt Works

Nick Sissons

HB - $120

Murcutt is one of the world’s most celebrated architects, known for his highly considered process of discovery that responds uniquely to the Australian landscape. Working in close collaboration with Murcutt, Sissons presents a selection of never-before-seen projects in remarkable detail, including original hand-drawn plans, sections, elevations and sketches from Murcutt’s personal archive.

House and Garden

The Local Project: 10

The Local Project

HB - $110

Compiling the highlights from the first ten issues of The Local Project magazine, this collections offers a concentrated insight into architecture and design of Australia and New Zealand by way of 23 homes. Featuring new work from both leading and emerging local architects and designers, the projects include such works as Bunkeren by James Stockwell Architecture and Waterview by John Wardle Architects.

Tzannes

Paola Favaro and Robert Freestone

HB - $120

Sydney-based architectural and urban design studio Tzannes has a reputation for innovation, collaboration and ethical practice, as well as for commitment to urban, natural and First Nations environments. This showcase of over 50 of their housing, commercial and cultural projects is accompanied by critical essays examining how we can and should design for this country’s present and future.

Midcentury Houses Today

Christina A Ross et al.

HB - $79.95

This expanded and updated edition of the 2014 classic focuses on the concentration of mid-century houses in New Canaan, Connecticut and addresses the issue of preservation and adaptive reuse as a sustainable architectural strategy. Seventeen of the houses are examined in detail from their initial construction to their reworking by significant contemporary architects.

Tropicality

Andra Matin

HB - $100

This first monograph from Indonesia’s most celebrated and exciting architect showcases a selection of his most significant residential projects, including his own home. Chosen for their exquisite craftsmanship and lush tropicality, each house represents the architect’s vision of relaxed living amongst nature, and an innate feeling for the tactility of materials.

Food

On Sundays

Dave Verheul

HB - $55

Sunday is the perfect day of the week for entertaining, the day when everything slows and we can spend our time meaningfully with family and friends. But what should you cook on a Sunday at the start of spring, or Sunday after a tough week? Divided into the four seasons, each chapter includes a selection of selfcontained recipes to inspire your perfect meal.

At Nonna’s Table

Paola Bacchia

HB - $45

Inspired by her mamma’s cherished recipes, Bacchia presents 60 delicious dishes that celebrate the best of Italian home cooking. From hearty Eggplant and Tomato Stew to crowdpleasing Celebration Chicken and the indulgent Mamma’s Orange Cake, Bacchia celebrates fresh ingredients, bold flavours, and simple techniques that make Italian food so beloved.

Sebze

Özlem Warren

HB - $55

Inspired by thousands of years of rich and diverse culinary heritage, Özlem Warren has compiled a recipe collection built with convenience and flavour in mind. Popular Turkish classics feature alongside lesserknown regional specialties, such as Gözleme (stuffed flatbreads), Cilbir (Turkish style poached eggs with garlicky yoghurt), Beetroot with Walnuts and Pomegranate Molasses, and Easy, Herby Pan Börek.

The Levantine Vegetarian

Salma

Hage

HB - $59.95

This celebration of a bold vegetarian cuisine features 140 easy-to-make, bright, uplifting recipes, from falafels, hummus, and tabbouleh to unique dishes reflective of the cultures across the Levantine. Covering Africa, Asia and the gateway to Europe, the food is fresh and delicious, whether it’s garliclaced mezze dishes, pittas stuffed with pickles, tahini, and grilled vegetables, or sweet and spicy desserts.

Italian Coastal

Amber Guinness

HB - $59.99

Inspired by the markets and food of summer holidays by the beach, this recipe book combines travelogue and memoir to transport readers to the sunny Mediterranean. Maximum flavour with minimal effort shines through in 60 delicious and achievable recipes that will bring coastal Italy to your table.

Ellie’s Table

Ellie Bouhadana

HB - $55

This recipe book is rich with storytelling, exploring Melbournian chef Ellie Bouhadana’s mixed Jewish background through food – from Morocco to the Mediterranean. The chapters are structured as Ellie would serve her guests at a dinner party, starting with cold plates, then snacks, then breads and whipped butters, followed by big plates, vegetables, pasta, and then finishing with sweets.

Bethlehem

Fadi Kattan

HB - $55

Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan celebrates the hidden parts of Bethlehem, his home, introducing readers to the local farmers and artisans who, sharing his love for culinary experimentation, work with him to find the best ingredients. Learn to stuff grape leaves with Nabulsi cheese, roll labaneh in nigella seeds, and make Mouhalabieh, a milky pudding scented with mastic and pistachios.

The

Balkan Kitchen

Irina Janakievska

HB - $55

Explore this diverse and expansive region of cuisine with everything from Pogaça (celebration share bread) and Leek, Lemon and Olive Salad to Baked Sirenje (white cheese) two ways and Chicken Paprikash, and sweet treats such as Vanilici Cookies and Chocolate Baklava. As over half the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, this is a book for all to enjoy the flavours of the Balkans.

Le Sud

Rebekah Peppler

HB - $55

For centuries, artists, holiday makers, and food writers have fallen for the charms of the south of France. Here, Peppler distils the flavours, techniques, and spirit of Provence, the Alps, and Côte d’Azur into a collection of 100 sweet and savoury recipes. Interwoven with the recipes are photographs and stories that expand a reader’s knowledge of southern French staples.

Easy Wins

Anna Jones

HB - $55

Jones divides her latest book into 12 chapters based on hero ingredients such as lemons, olive oil, mustard and tahini. She provides 125 dishes for your daily rotation, like Double Lemon Pilaf with Buttery Almonds, Traybake Lemon Dhal, Miso Rarebit, and Cherry and Chocolate Peanut Butter Sundae. Jones also gives practical advice on how to season and flavour and for vegetarian alternatives.

Pocha

Su Scott

HB - $49.99

Scott returns to the streets where she grew up and the food that shaped her, with 80 delicious and playful recipes that take you on a journey through the narrow streets of Seoul. From Corn Dogs and Fried Chicken to Kimchi Pancakes and Perilla Oil Noodles for slurping, Scott invites you to bring the beating heart of Korea’s food scene into your kitchen.

Tipo 00

Andreas Papadakis

HB - $49.99

Chef Papadakis of Mebourne’s cult pasta bar Tipo 00 has documented exceptional versions of more than 80 recipes. All the favourites are here: Asparagus Ravioli with Parmesan Cream, Coco Paccheri with Pine Mushrooms and Pine Nuts, Gnocchi with Duck and Porcini Ragu, their signature Tipomisu dessert and everyone's favourite focaccia.

Fashion and Art

STYLE

Norman Parkinson

HB - $89.99

Through his beautiful photographs for British, American, French, and Australian Vogue magazines, Norman Parkinson defined the way we saw fashion in the 20th century. This book collects hundreds of his greatest photographs taken for Vogue, accompanied by detailed captions, as well as features on key models and collaborators.

Charles & Barbara Blackman

Christabel Blackman

HB - $59.99

Christabel Blackman’s intimate account of artistic transformation is interspersed with the handwritten letters her parents – legends of the Heidi group – wrote to each other, as well as with never-before-seen sketches and photographs. Set against the cultural scene of 1950s Melbourne, Christabel weaves the story of Charles and Barbara, the influence they had on each other, and on the Australian art world.

Women Artists in Midcentury America

Daniel Belasco

HB - $59.99

Readers embark on a journey spanning two decades, delving into the evolving social and artistic landscapes through the lens of all-women exhibitions. These groundbreaking projects confronted issues of sexual and racial discrimination, igniting profound discussion about women’s roles within modernism and democracy. Belasco investigates this complex history and its significance in the broader art world.

The Vast Extent

Lavinia Greenlaw

HB - $45

From the celebrated poet, novelist and memoirist, this constellation of ‘exploded essays’ about light and image, seeing and the unseen is a record of how thought builds and ideas emerge. We travel with Greenlaw across caves, seasickness, early photography, boredom, wonder, mountains, mice, the body and its shadow, the Arctic in midwinter and shingle spit in midsummer Norfolk.

Radiant

Brad Gooch

HB - $80

Keith Haring’s thousands of chalk drawings in the subways of New York in the 1980s were synonymous with a city ravaged by poverty and oppression but alive with creative energy. Part of a crowd that included Warhol, Madonna, and Basquiat, he broke down barriers with provocative but accessible work. Based on interviews and a rich archival history, Gooch sets out to capture the short life of this visionary icon.

Artful Lives

Penny Olsen

PB - $39.99

The Cohen sisters lived frugally, enjoyed mischief and flaunted their bohemian lifestyle. Raised in Melbourne but drawn to the tropics, their winters were spent on their tropical island in then underdeveloped North Queensland. Far from the gaze of civilisation, life was simple and bronzed. In this part family history, part social history, part art history, as the sisters’ story unfolds, so too does an art heist.

Music and Film

The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain

Kazuo Ishiguro

HB - $39.99

A coming together of the literary and musical worlds, this illustrated book collects the 16 song lyrics Ishiguro wrote for world-renowned American singer Stacey Kent, which were set to music by her partner Jim Tomlinson. The lyrics are infused with a sense of yearning, melancholy, love, and the romance of travel and liminal spaces.

Radio Birdman

Murray Engleheart

PB - $36.99

Regarded as one of the earliest punk bands, Sydney’s Radio Birdman were feared and loathed by many, yet adored by fiercely loyal fans. From tales of singer Rob Younger filling his mouth with sheep brains out of a human skull to fans breaking limbs while dancing wildly at gigs and publicans cutting the power in a bid to halt their performances, their story is one of confrontation, commitment, and inspiration.

3

Shades of Blue

James Kaplan

HB - $49.99

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Davis’ sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album Kind of Blue Kaplan meditates on the creativity of these golden-age forebears who would take music down strange new paths. Above all, this is a book about the struggles, choices and tragedies of three very different men.

Shakespeare on the Noongar Stage

Clint Bracknell and Kylie Bracknell

PB - $29.99

The play Hecate is a ground-breaking and audacious adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the Noongar language and from a Noongar perspective. This book contains the complete play, a glossary, as well as chapters outlining the process of creating and then producing a play on a professional stage with a Noongar cast. The project is also designed to inspire language recovery and restoration in Australia.

Under a Rock

Chris Stein

PB - $34.99

At its heart, this is a love story. The codependent bond between Chris Stein and Debbie Harry carried Blondie through many tribulations, from dealing with greasy record execs and bitter band mates, to the gruelling schedules, abuse of hard drugs and the misogyny of the music scene. This is a quintessentially New York story of halcyon days in the East Village and the makings of international superstars.

Cocktails with George and Martha

Philip Gefter

HB - $49.99

Across 644 sold-out performances, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? scandalised critics but magnetised audiences, marking a definitive end to the I Love Lucy 1950s. Gefter tells the story of how this scorching play became a movie classic – surviving censorship attempts, its director's inexperience, and its stars' own tumultuous marriage.

Children’s Picture Books

Where is the Cat?

Eva Eland

HB - $25.99

Suzy is visiting Auntie today, and she wants to play with Cat. But he’s always just out of her reach. Suzy calls for him – all she wants to do is play dress up, or dance together, or pretend they’re mummy and baby … but Cat doesn’t like the sound of that one bit. Will he change his mind at nap time, when Suzy is quiet and curled up in bed?

Two Turtles

Kiah Thomas

HB - $24.99

Frank and Terrence are known for their relentless rivalry. They compete in everything, from slow-walking races to shiniest-shell contests. But one fateful day, they take things too far, with no way out but to work together. Can you be fiercely competitive and still be a good teammate?

The Garden of Broken Things

Freya Blackwood

HB - $26.99

One day, curious Sadie follows a cat into the tangled vines behind the lonely house at Number 9, Ardent Street. Deep in the undergrowth, past all the twisted, rusted things, Sadie finds the cat sitting on the lap of a woman, bent with time and weariness. Sadie has found the Garden of Broken Things.

Listen, Hippo!

Gabriel Evans

HB - $24.99

When Billy is feeling sad, he wishes he had someone to talk to. He thinks what he needs is someone to listen … but his best friend, Hippo, believes he knows exactly what Billy needs! Playing dress-ups will cheer Billy up, and dancing in the cherry blossoms, or maybe a pirate adventure? No? How will Hippo help his friend?

The Robbery

Joaquin Camp

HB - $26.99

The plan was very simple: Thief 1, Thief 2, and Thief 3 would dig a tunnel and rob a bank at night. They even took an excavation course with the best teachers. As it turns out, the thieves have a lot of unexpected skills, but digging tunnels to banks is not one of them. Their tunnels do lead to some very interesting places though …

Grey

Laura Dockrill

HB - $27.99

Despite the joyful orange balloon, the huge yellow sun, and the bright green trees, the child still feels grey. That is until a reassuring hand reaches out and shares words of kindness. Soon the child begins to see the warmth of colour again, and understands that their colours will always be there and that they will always be loved, whether they feel grey or sunshine yellow.

Thank You

Jarvis

HB - $24.99

There is so much to be thankful for! I thank the moon for the night time. I thank the sun for the day. I thank my boots for knowing the way… In this picture book for the very young, we see the world through a child’s eyes as he thanks all of the things that give him joy: the sun, his bicycle, the jelly in his bowl, and so much more.

Children’s Picture Books

What Stars Are For

Margeaux Davis

HB - $24.99

Henry spends his nights exploring the world alone and wondering one thing: what are stars for? One morning, he decides to come out of his shell and ask someone. Can Henry find the answer to his question and make a friend?

No. 5 Bubblegum Street

Mikolaj Pa

HB - $29.99

There’s a lot happening inside the apartment building on Bubblegum Street. You can hear music playing and very loud snoring too. The delicious aroma of cake wafts through the stairwell, and there’s always something tapping, knocking, shuffling, and ringing … until 6pm when all the residents gather on the rooftop terrace for their weekly party to show off their talents.

Pancakes for Plum

Rae Tan

HB - $24.99

Plum worries she’s not good at anything. Big Brother is good at climbing trees and Second Brother is good at painting, but when Plum tries to join them, she discovers climbing and painting aren’t really for her. Then she hears piano notes for the first time and her heart flips over like a pancake on a hot pan. Could playing piano be the thing that’s truly meant for her?

Around the World with Friends

Philip Waechter

HB - $27.99

Raccoon finishes his book and is ready for his own adventure – he wants thrills, excitement, and to cross the ocean! He and his friends sail through rapids, collect sweet blackberries, chase away bees, and play soccer, until a little rain and thoughts of home bring their excursion to an end. That, thinks Raccoon, was the most magnificent adventure with friends he’s ever had.

Spiro

Anna McGregor

HB - $24.99

Spiro’s formula for spidery success: 11% hunger to succeed (or actual hunger), 34% trying again and again … and again, 53% giving it another shot, and 2% spider silk. In this hilarious tale, one spider is determined to find a decent meal.

Children’s Fiction

Ferris

Kate DiCamillo

HB - $19.99

It’s the summer before fifth grade. For Ferris Wilkey, it’s a summer of sheer pandemonium. Her little sister, Pinky, has vowed to become an outlaw, her aunt is holed up in the Wilkey basement, and her grandmother has started seeing a ghost in the doorway to her room – a ghost who seems to have wild, impractical, and illuminating plans.

The Apprentice Witnesser

Bren MacDibble

PB - $17.99

Bastienne Scull is a young orphan who lives with Lodyma Darsey, the local Witnesser of Miracles, who investigates what’s behind miraculous events and spins them into stories she tells at the night markets. One day, two young boys arrive in town asking Lodyma to go on a mysterious mission to a monastery. When Lodyma and Bastienne arrive, what they discover will change their lives.

Tweet

Morris Gleitzman

PB - $17.99

Birds. Lots of birds. The people of the world are puzzled. Their feathered friends are trying to tell them something, and they’re not sure what it is. Then a boy and his pet budgie discover the secret. Join Jay and Clyde, and their friends Maxine and Dora, on an epic adventure that could save their families and change the future of the earth.

Cora Seen and

Heard

Zanni Louise

PB - $17.99

When Cora’s parents decide to renovate an old theatre in Tasmania, she realises this is the perfect opportunity to reinvent her personality. Enter Cora 2.0, stage left. When Cora quickly slips back into her old ways, she shares her frustration with her imaginary pen pal. The last thing she’d expect is for her letters to go missing. And now, the real Cora Lane is about to go public, but is she ready?

A Small Collection of Happinesses

Zana Fraillon

PB - $14.99

When Ada moves houses on the day of the Great Summer Storm, it quickly becomes apparent that she is not the kind of neighbour Hettie was hoping for. But as the summer unfolds, Hettie and Ada discover they have more in common than they think. Could their unlikely friendship be the missing piece they never knew they needed?

Stitch

Pádraig Kenny

PB - $16.99

Stitch is not a monster – he’s a creation. He and his friend Henry were brought to life by the genius professor Hardacre, and have spent all their days in a castle deep in the woods, far from humankind. But when the Professor dies and his nephew comes to take over the laboratory, they soon find themselves in danger. Can Stitch and Henry escape his clutches and make their way in a world they were never built for?

Children’s Fiction

Queen of Dogs

Joe Weatherstone

PB - $16.99

Maddy’s family are talented and ambitious but Maddy would rather spend time with her best friend, her pug Gusto. When Gusto disappears, her search for Gusto reveals a surprising talent: she can understand everything the neighbourhood dogs say. But when more and more dogs go missing, Maddy finds herself with a much bigger problem, and she is going to need a lot of help to solve it.

Puppet

David Almond

HB - $24.99

On the brink of retirement, puppet master Sylvester makes one last puppet. But this one is different. When the old man speaks to him, Puppet speaks back! Sylvester introduces Puppet to the town, the playground, and the wonders the world holds, and in turn, Puppet helps Sylvester to make a new friend and share his puppet-making skills with the next generation.

Bunny and Clyde

Megan McDonald

HB - $27.99

Rule-abiding buddies, Bunny and Clyde, are tired of being good. For once, they want to know what it’s like to be baddies – rotten to the core! What if the dastardly duo started returning library books late on purpose or borrowing markers without asking? Everyone knows it’s a swift downhill slide from there. Unless, of course, their best attempts at mastering bad deeds are strangely misconstrued …

The Sugarcane Kids and the Empty Cage

Charlie Archbold

PB - $16.99

When Andy and the Sugarcane Kids hear about an illegal native-animal trade, they know they have to investigate – and fast! Along with his trusty sausage dog Washington, Andy and the Sugarcane Kids have their eyes on a prime suspect: the fierce new canteen lady who is behaving very strangely. Can they unravel the mystery in time? And what unexpected dangers lie in wait?

Hester Hitchins and the Falling Stars

Catherine Norton

PB - $22.99

It is 1866, and Hester’s father is missing at sea. Determined to find him, she wins a place at Addington’s Nautical Navigation Academy, where she will learn to navigate by the stars. But the academy is just for boys, and what’s more, no one seems to be in charge. With the help of a lodestone, her new friends, and a dazzling meteor storm, Hester will learn what it takes to set things right – and find her place in the universe.

The Night War

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

PB - $19.99

In 1942, Nazi-occupied France is unsafe for Jewish 12-year-old Miri. Separated from her parents, she rescues her neighbours’ two year-old daughter Nora and escapes to a village, where she assumes a new name and pretends to be Catholic to avoid Nazi capture. One night she is asked to undertake a terrifying task that could allow her to escape, but can she also rescue Nora? And can she also save the lives of many more?

Children’s Reference

Big Ideas from Literature

The School of Life

HB - $42.99

Books can be so powerful, helping us through tricky times, offering us wisdom, showing that there are people like us, and that there are people living lives utterly different to our own. This book teaches children (and adults!) about the history of literature, from the first ever story that was written down to the invention of books just for children.

The Lift-the-Flap Encyclopaedia of Dinosaurs

Eryl Nash

HB - $29.99

Inquisitive dinosaur enthusiasts will discover all their favourite dinosaurs (and some new ones!) inside the covers of this book. Young readers will understand how the dinosaurs lived, why they died out, and where their fossils have been found in recent times with a huge lift-the-flap fossil map.

Beasts From the Deep

Matt Ralphs

HB - $35

Did you know there is a place on Earth that’s hardly been explored at all? A place with near-freezing temperatures, crushing water pressure and total darkness? Discover a magnificent menagerie of monsters that lurk deep down in our oceans – from sharks that can live for five centuries, to fish with teeth so long they can’t close their mouths and jellies that glow and flash in startling colours.

Science All Around Us

Mei Liu

HB - $24.99

Are you ready to see how science works? Lift the flaps to discover fascinating facts about the world around you, including answers to questions like: How do we know what’s out there in space? What do we do with all this poo? If we can’t see it, how do we know it’s real? This book draws on the scientific knowledge of Scienceworks experts to show the many ways science is always all around us.

Fly

David Lindo

HB - $34.99

A collection of more than 150 birds awaits discovery. Meet flocking birds, birds that prefer the sea to the sky, birds with brilliant beaks, fantastic feet, wonderful wings, eye-catching colours and more. This fully-illustrated guide to the diversity of birdlife around the world includes interesting facts, a taste of bird-inspired mythology and folklore, and a guide to how and where to spot birds.

Patience

Rachel Williams

HB - $34.99

The concept of time is hard to grasp. In one minute, your heart beats over 100 times. In one day, a dragonfly unfurls a pair of wings. In a season, a bear hibernates. In over 80 years, a human lives a lifetime. Here, 18 different periods of time show the process of life, from plants, animals, and human biology. Full of real science but rooted in the deeper things in life to prompt questions between a parent and child.

Deep is the Fen

Lili Wilkinson

PB - $24.99

Merriwether Morgan doesn’t need a happily-ever-after. Her life is fine just as it is: simple with absolutely no magic. Magic only ever leads to trouble. But Merry’s best friend, Teddy, is joining the Toadmen – a secret society upholding backward thinking and suspiciously supernatural traditions – and she is determined to stop him, even if it means teaming up with her archnemesis.

Into the Mouth of the Wolf

Erin Gough

PB - $22.99

Iris lives on the run with her mother, who one day vanishes without a trace. Entirely alone and fearing the worst, Iris reaches out to a stranger for help. When Lena gets Iris’ message, Lena is intrigued but worried. A dead body has just washed up at the beach in Glassy Bay and her old friend seems to know something about it. To find the truth, Iris and Lena will have to go into the mouth of the wolf …

The Unexpected Mess of It All

Gabrielle Tozer

PB - $19.99

Jamila Dakhoul wants to escape her life and forget everything. Forget that her only friends are strangers on the internet, that she’s stuck in a caravan after a fire destroyed her family’s house, and forget that Year 12 is a brutal hellhole. But as Jamila tries to untangle the messy threads of her life, it becomes clear that she can’t outrun her past, no matter how hard she tries …

Liar’s Test

Ambelin Kwaymullina

PB - $24.99

Bell Silverleaf is a liar. It’s how she’s survived. It’s how all Treesingers have survived, after they were invaded by the Risen and their gods. But now –thanks to some political manoeuvring – Bell is in the Queen’s Test. She’s one of seven girls competing in deadly challenges to determine who rules for the next 25 years. If Bell wins, she’ll use the power to help her people and get her revenge on the Risen.

Young Adult

One By One They Disappear

Mike Lucas

PB - $19.99

The fog is coming. And when it does, everything disappears … One girl. Two identities. Three friends. One disappears. One forgets. One remembers.

There is truth in every tale … Find it!

Maria Petranelli is Prepared for Anything (Except This)

Elisa Chenoweth

PB - $21.99

Maria will do anything to get away from her overbearing Italian-Australian family. She’s over their constant heckling about getting a boyfriend and their loudly spoken belief that she’s incapable of doing, well, anything. So when her family declares she ‘couldn’t handle living in Italy’, Maria immediately signs up to go there on student exchange. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything …