Riverbend Books Summer Reading Guide 2024

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Summer Reading Guide

This season’s best books selected by your favourite independent booksellers

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Australian Fiction, Poetry & Essays

The Belburd Nardi Simpson

Hachette PB

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The second novel from Yuwaalaraay writer and musician Nardi Simpson is a lyrically written dual-strand creation story. Ginny Dilboong, a young First Nations woman living in Warrane/Sydney, is recovering from the breakup of a relationship. She writes poems that she publishes in an unorthodox way, planting them with native tree seeds in the earth so that they can take root in the world. Hers is one of two narratives in this book, the second being about Sprite, a birth spirit, waiting in the saltwater with Mother Eel to be born to a Cammeraygal woman in the early post-colonial period. Though set centuries apart, the stories both speak to the powerful interconnectedness and resilience of land, culture and First Nations people.

We asked author Nardi Simpson a few questions about The Belburd:

Can you tell us about the book’s title?

Belburd references the daughter of Bennelong and Barangaroo – a baby girl born on the shores of Circular Quay in 1791. Her name was Dilboong which translates to ‘bellbird’. The idea for a story about a young Koori woman came from imagining the life of a modern-day bellbird. The character Ginny is a writer, so naturally interested in words and language – the spelling is something that reflects her inquisitive way with words.

The call of a bellbird is uniquely melodic and tolls across the landscape, something I feel baby Dilboong continues to do.

$34.99

4th Estate PB

$34.99

sense of kinship and family so they know who they belong to and where they belong.

Do you find the act of writing empowering?

Narrative is a way to exercise connection to the communities, countries, peoples and knowledges that I am a part of.

I don’t consider writing a book a purely artistic endeavour. It is also a way for me to maintain my cultural obligations. I feel so fortunate I get to do it in creative, imaginative ways.

You’re a musician and are currently undertaking a PhD at the ANU School of Music in which you are composing music inspired by Yuwaalaraay country, story, peoples and knowledge. Do you think the act of writing is very different to that of making music?

The feeling of words is important to me so I speak them before I commit them to the story. I make sentences, paragraphs and scenes resonate in my body. This helps me know if they hold the kind of beat and resonance I’m looking for. If they feel right to say and land well on my ear then I know the composition is strong.

In the book, Ginny ‘drenches herself in Dreaming’ when she recites her poem at the university. Do you feel that you do the same when you are writing?

I always aim to be in a state of great connection when I write, whether that be with landscape, knowledge, history or people. It helps me feel supported and strong as an artist. That sense of deep, ongoing connectedness also strengthens my imagination. I always aim to have my words spring from a

ALL THE BEES IN THE HOLLOWS Lauren Keegan

Affirm PB

CHERRYWOOD Jock Serong

DIVING, FALLING Kylie Mirmohamadi

Scribe PB

$32.99

Text PB

$32.99

Leila Whittaker’s husband Ken, a renowned artist, has died. She and her two sons are left mourning him while at the same time processing the many cruelties he inflicted on them. Leila, now freed from ‘the serial mortifications of [her] marriage’, must forge a new life.

But this time, she decides, she will have agency. The fallout from the death of a family patriarch is a well-worn trope in literature, but Mirmohamadi’s novel feels fresh and Leila, her sons, her friends and her [new] lovers are all relatable. Diving, Falling fits snugly into the modern domestic realism genre, deserving comparisons with the work of writers such as Margaret Drabble and Anita Brookner.

DUSK Robbie Arnott

THE BURROW Melanie Cheng

Can we be ourselves if we follow a preordained course? Set in 16th-century Lithuania, in a society of beekeepers that is in transition between old folk beliefs and a newly imposed Christianity, this is the story of Austeja, her mother Marytè, and a gruesome murder. Austeja feels at home in the forest but does not want to take on the beekeeping and wifely role that is expected of her. When she finds the body of the ‘Hollow Watcher’, the Duke’s overseer, she chafes against her destiny and the strictures of her gender, but is determined to protect – and understand – her family. As we switch between the perspectives of mother and daughter our. sympathy is caught, and we wonder what path Austeja will choose.

This mystical, mysterious novel is full of love of all kinds, but also addresses the aches of fear, loss and longing.

In the 1910s, a rich but decent Scotsman is convinced to embark on a business venture to build a paddle steamer to traverse Port Phillip Bay, using cherrywood that has been at the centre of long-standing feuds. In the 1990s, a corporate lawyer with dreams of fighting for human rights stumbles across a young, attractive barman in a wooden pub that literally moves within the suburb of Fitzroy. Jock Serong expertly paces the revelations of how the two stories are connected. While magical realism may be a departure from his previous novels, there are some continuing themes here, and his writing is as surefooted as ever.

How would you find your way back to one another if the worst possible thing happened to you and your family?

Acclaimed writer Melanie Cheng (Australia Day) posits this question in her latest novel The Burrow. Nearly four years on, the grief surrounding sixmonth-old Ruby’s death is raw, palpable, unrelenting. A rabbit purchased in a wishful haze of optimism punctures her family’s grief, allowing them to chart themselves alongside something new and unusual. But an unexplained mystery lies at the heart of The Burrow, one that illuminates the invisible fault line in the family: the exact circumstances surrounding Ruby’s death. In a lean, exquisitely gentle and deft masterstroke of a novel, Cheng materialises a family in crisis on the precipice of hope.

Picador PB

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The latest novel by Tasmanian writer Robbie Arnott opens with an arrestingly beautiful scene of passage into the southern highlands – a wild puma has been terrorising the land and two travellers are looking for work. In time, we will learn these twins’ story and about the coarse past that renders them inseparable, but in this quiet moment the overwhelming sensation is that we are stepping into myth. Ancient bones and primal savagery, history and rebirth – in its broadest strokes this book resembles a tale passed down through generations.

Yet it is equally powerful in its specificity: understated moments of tenderness amidst the twins’ tumultuous relationship accompany breathtaking visions of a land not yet fully yoked by colonial ambition.

With Dusk, Arnott has crafted another modern masterwork, distinctly Australian, yet achingly universal.

Literary Award Winners ANAM André Dao

CLOSE TO THE SUBJECT: SELECTED WORKS Daniel Browning

Hamish Hamilton PB This exquisitely written blend of fiction and essay was the recipient of this year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. $32.99

$34.99

Set in a Melbourne drama school, this insightful exploration of creativity and performance won the 2024 The Australian/Vogel’s Award for Young Writers.

Phillips’ novel about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in a mental asylum in the chaotic aftermath of the American Civil War won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

$32.99

Fleet PB

$32.99

BROTHERLESS NIGHT VV Ganeshananthan

DOPPELGANGER Naomi Klein

KAIROS Jenny Erpenbeck

PRAISEWORTHY Alexis Wright

Ganeshananthan’s searing novel about a young Tamil woman living through the Sri Lankan civil war was awarded the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Klein’s book about the shadow world of social media – where facts are malleable, disinformation prevalent and conspiracy theories abundant – was awarded the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.

Winner of this year’s International Booker Prize, Kairos’ story of love and betrayal takes place in Berlin during the years before and after the fall of the Wall.

A triple-award-winner! Wright’s epic novel won this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award, Stella Prize and James Tait Black Prize for Fiction.

Penguin PB

$22.99

NIGHT WATCH Jayne Anne Phillips

Allen & Unwin PB

Magabala PB

This collection of critical essays and interviews by broadcaster and journalist Daniel Browning won this year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction.

FIRST YEAR Kristina Ross

Penguin PB

$24.99

Granta PB

$24.99

Giramondo PB

$39.95

Australian Fiction, Poetry & Essays Juice Tim Winton Tim Winton’s Juice is a terrifying and Hamish utterly engrossing Hamilton HB novel about the WAS $49.99 potential ramifications NOW $39.99 of climate change. $ The world it is set in is unrecognisable, a forsaken place.

Its inhabitants are barely hanging on, their existence dictated by unbearable heat and extreme weather events. The novel’s unnamed narrator has come to terms with this fate. That is until he comes of age and is shown how the world got this way. How it became transformed by an age of greed, lies and wilful destruction.

This blistering new novel is unlike any other by Winton, but it bears all the trademarks of the master storyteller.

Tim Winton answers a few of our questions about Juice:

MUP PB

$34.99

At the beginning of the novel your narrator finds himself in a predicament. Can you tell us a bit about this?

He’s become homeless and he’s looking for a viable settlement to join. He has a kid in his care who’s not his. And he comes to a good-looking spot, an abandoned mine. Only to find someone’s got there first. He’s taken prisoner. So he tells the story of the novel as a way of preventing or delaying his death and the child’s potential enslavement.

It’s high stakes storytelling.

Allen & Unwin PB

$34.99

While being a call to arms in some respects, Juice is also an immersive, propulsive read. Was this always your intention for the book?

It had to be. I wanted to shake things up.

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Against the backdrop of a fictional meeting between Stalin and the then-head of the Georgian republic, Lavrentiy Beria, at a Black Sea resort in 1938, journalist and author Malcolm Knox creates a darkly disturbing and satirically black-humoured tale about a psychopath and war criminal who would go on to head up the Russian secret police and become one of Stalin’s right-hand men. The First Friend tells the story of fictional character Vasil Murtov, Beria’s childhood friend, now working as his chauffeur and general dogsbody.

We know things aren’t going to end well for Murtov, as the book is framed around the countdown to his death, so no spoilers here. As Beria’s paranoia around the upcoming meeting spins out of control, will the ends justify his psychotic means?

Macmillan PB

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Liane Moriarty’s latest novel features characters that feel like friends. Moriarty has a canny ability to make everything familiar, but then she twists the knife.

Here, passengers board a plane from Hobart to Sydney and during the flight a woman systematically tells each person how they are going to die and when.

As news of the ‘Death Lady’, as this woman becomes known, spreads across Australia, the passengers must decide if she does have magical powers or if her prophecies are complete and utter nonsense. Along the way, we get a portrait of contemporary Australia that will delight Moriarty’s legion of fans. A rollicking holiday read.

THE LABRYINTH Amanda Lohrey

Text PB

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Lothian PB

$24.99

This elegiac novel was the winner of the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Its protagonist, Erica Marsden, has relocated to an unkempt shack on the NSW south coast to be closer to her only son, who is incarcerated in a nearby gaol. Daniel has committed a dreadful crime, and the shock of this has put Erica into a fugue state, one that she knows she must exit. Following her psychiatrist father’s advice (drawn from Jung), she decides to try and cure her ills by building something. That something ends up being a stone labyrinth, and the act of its creation will force Erica to reconnect with the world, trust people and reckon with her past. Lohrey’s novel is powerful, raising themes and questions for which there are no easy answers.

MOLLY Rosalie Ham

Picador PB

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IMMORTAL DARK Tigest Girma Simmering with tension and seared with passion, this crossover YA/adult novel is an immaculate dark-academia fantasy where immortal African vampires and their human companions keep a tenuous peace in the halls of the mysterious Uxlay University. Kidan Adane, the lost heiress of one of Uxlay’s great houses, must return to this world if she wants to find her missing sister and her supposed kidnapper: Susenyos, the last vampire of House Adane.

What she doesn’t expect is being forced to live with him to keep her inheritance.

Susenyos is tortured darkness, Kidan is wrathful fire – simply surviving each other is hard enough, but as Kidan is drawn into a maelstrom of sinister plots and bloody secrets, it becomes clear that Uxlay holds greater dangers than one frustratingly alluring vampire.

Aquarius, a middle-aged and overweight journalist who hates machines, is offered a million dollars to write about the moon landing. Full of ennui, sitting in a room with the wives of the astronauts, Aquarius watches the moon landing unfold. This Kingdom of Dust imagines a scenario where the Eagle lands on the moon, but something goes dreadfully wrong. Buzz and Neil are stuck, running out of oxygen, and must use all their ingenuity to survive. Dyer writes characters based on historical figures, and refers to some deeply researched real events. This story follows the imagined story of Buzz, Neil and Joan, Neil’s wife, who is awaiting his unlikely return. Aquarius’s voice is a tribute to Norman Mailer’s Fire on the Moon, his own reportage of the moon landing.

1. Where does the dragon’s blood tree grow?

HERE ONE MOMENT Liane Moriarty

Despite their circumstances, the characters in the novel have managed to hold onto their humanity and humour.

Was it difficult writing about characters who had been through such hardship?

I’ve always been interested in what humans do in extremis. So, some of the details were different, but the dilemma is familiar.

One of the central themes is retribution. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose this as a focus?

I’ve been reading a lot about the generational impacts of humiliation. Folks who are treated as objects will experience a kind of paralysis. But that humiliation curdles into resentment and generational trauma. The resulting drive for revenge is primal.

And usually tragic.

Penguin PB

THE FIRST FRIEND Malcolm Knox

Can you tell us a bit about the world that Juice is set in?

The book’s set in our north-west in a future world that’s transformed by climate extremes. Humanity’s trying to adjust and adapt after many decades of collapse and disorder.

Why did you choose to tackle the issue of climate change in the way you have? What were some of the challenges you faced?

This is the biggest issue of our time and so few artists have been prepared to tackle it head on.

There’s a reason for that! Not just timidity and evasiveness, which are definitely factors, but also because it’s extremely difficult to write about in a way that’s engaging and illuminating.

Nightmares are nightmarish to write.

THIS KINGDOM OF DUST David Dyer

ESSAYS THAT CHANGED AUSTRALIA: MEANJIN 1940 TO TODAY Esther Anatolitis (ed) Since its launch in 1940, literary journal Meanjin has consistently presented incisive essays that both interrogate and influence Australian culture. Current editor Esther Anatolitis now invites readers to dip their toes into the archives with this compilation of 20 essays, each one sitting among the publication’s most widely cited and impactful works. Contributors have been taken from across the years and range over a diverse set of topics, at times interlinked.

They include Tony Birch, Gerald Murnane, Thea Astley, Hilary Charlesworth, Sneja Gunew, Chelsea Watego, Gaja Kerry Charlton, and more. This is a collection to encourage further reflection and conversation, as is made clear in Anatolitis’ introduction, where she places the essays within context and also considers what it means to ‘change’ a nation.

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Assiduous author Rosalie Ham is back with another tale of how women change everything, including law and underwear. It is the story of Molly Dunnage, a corset designer and motherto-be of Myrtle, star of the international bestseller The Dressmaker. Set in the early 1910s, Molly records the struggles of the suffragettes, the poverty of families and the conversations women were having about their clothes, meals, education and work. Full of delicious detail and eccentric characters, this portrait of Australia takes the form of a love story, but is more a tale of defiance. It turns out that Molly is the hero we all need. Perfect summer reading for Ham’s many fans.

RAPTURE Emily Maguire

Allen & Unwin PB

$32.99

Pope Joan, Ioannes Anglicus, Agnes of Mainz. However you may know her, this woman who successfully (for a while) disguised herself as a man reigned as pope for two years in the Middle Ages.

In this bewitching work of historical fiction, Emily Maguire has reimagined Joan’s life – with all its gaps, conjecture and disagreements – to paint a compelling portrait of a woman who refused to live life within the limited terms available to her at the time. Travelling from Mainz to Fulda to Athens and finally to Rome, Maguire is adept at conjuring the desires, ambitions and preoccupations of a woman who was denied religious scholarship until she dared imagine a different reality for herself. With clear parallels to Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s 1962 play Yentl, Maguire delivers a revisionist work of feminist reclamation.

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Australian Fiction, Poetry & Essays

Text PB

WAS $45 NOW $19.99 $

RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER Kate Grenville

THE TEMPERATURE Katerina Gibson

TWENTY-TWO IMPRESSIONS Jessica Friedman

Based on the life of Kate Grenville’s maternal grandmother, this novel proffers a vivid portrait of an intelligent and courageous woman born at the end of the 19th century, a period that Grenville (in an afterword) describes as a time when ‘if you were born clever and energetic – but female – you had to endure a life of injustice and frustration’. Dolly fights this fate in the only way she can – by working hard and taking risks to improve her family’s economic lot.

This comes at a great cost, with her restless nature and single-minded ambition sitting uneasily alongside her role as a wife and mother. Made stoic through circumstance, Dolly is in the end a tragic character, one whose life is sympathetically reimagined in Grenville’s understated but elegant prose.

Mostly set against the several years leading up to COVID, this debut novel asks how we can live through climate catastrophe and social dislocation.

A viral tweet is the catalyst for intimate glimpses into the inner lives of six interconnected characters, showing us six different ways of responding to crisis. Katerina Gibson was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Australian Novelist of the Year before this book was even published. Her skill is evident; she is equally at home voicing young or old, activist or nihilist, daughter or father, inner-city party goer or rural hermit.

Most of all her talent shines as she takes the temperature of the world in which we live.

Do you believe in magic? More importantly, perhaps, does the author of this collection of meditative essays on the cards of a particular Tarot deck (the Marseilles) believe in it? Having left behind her suspicion of the Tarot’s powers as ‘ersatz’, Jessica Friedmann is open to the possibility – and many meanings – of magic. She certainly thinks deeply about it.

This beautifully presented hardback starts with a critical history of the Tarot and its place in religious and secular life before moving onto Friedmann’s own, more personal impressions of the title, giving us little glimpses into her life and thoughts, not just about the Tarot but about love, identity and beauty.

Scribner PB

$32.99

A SONG TO DROWN RIVERS Ann Liang

Macmillan PB

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Venturing away from the YA genre and contemporary secondary-school settings of her first three novels, Ann Liang has written an adult-fiction title based on the legend of Xi Shi, one of the so-called ‘Four Beauties’ of ancient China.

As courageous as she was beautiful, Xi Shi was a young woman who was used by the Yue king as a tool to bring down the rival Wu kingdom. Liang tells the tale from Xi Shi’s perspective (she spells the name Xishi), evoking palace life in 473 BCE in lyrical prose and presenting the reader with an exciting plot featuring a courageous and relatable protagonist.

Text PB

$32.99

2. Whose restaurant is known for fun?

Fremantle PB

$34.99

$35

THEORY & PRACTICE Michelle de Kretser

WING Nikki Gemmell

Though the latest work by Miles Franklin Award–winning writer Michelle de Kretser reads as autofiction, its author has emphatically denied that this is the case.

This makes the result doubly impressive, as the narrative, which is largely set in the bohemian beachside Melbourne suburb of St Kilda in 1986, reads as believably as any memoir. The book’s narrator is a young unnamed woman studying a postgraduate degree in English literature during the height of academia’s infatuation with French poststructuralist theory.

Overwhelmed and unconvinced by this, she diverts her attention to an affair with the partner of a friend. The predictable result is recounted amid musings about feminism, art, postcolonialism and much more, challenging our preconceptions of what a novel can be.

Unfolding over the space of eight days, this suspenseful novel reads as a feminist reworking of Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. On a school camping trip, four students and a male teacher from a prestigious Sydney girls’ school have gone missing in the bush. Their parents and the school’s principal wait at the campsite for news, getting more frantic by the hour.

Finally, the girls emerge. But where is the teacher? And why are the girls behaving so strangely? Gemmell skilfully uses the second-person voice to foster a connection between the reader and her narrator, the female school principal. This character's surging panic, dread and anguish is made almost visceral through the text, and when she is faced with a momentous decision at the book’s denouement, she and the reader have some big judgements to make.

4th Estate PB

$34.99

THE THINNING Inga Simpson

SPINNING AROUND Kirsten Krauth & Angela Savage (eds) One doesn’t have to be a Kylie Minogue fan to appreciate this latest anthology from Fremantle Press, though it certainly helps. A collection of fiction, memoir and poetry where each contribution is built around a Kylie song, the pieces range from darkly funny to unnerving to spine-tinglingly eerie. Gay icon that Kylie is, it’s only appropriate that internalised homophobia giving way to rapturous reclamation of self takes centre stage in Holden Sheppard’s and Dmetri Kakmi’s pieces. Some incorporate Kylie’s music into their narrative, as Angela Savage does in a playful short story, while Julie Koh, Emma Viskic and Grace Chan embody the essence of their designated songs to weave fantastical tales or evoke murder and complicity. Christos Tsiolkas catalogues the bittersweetness of a dying relationship in the book’s coda.

Scribe HB

Hachette PB

$32.99

A world ravaged by climate change is the backdrop to Inga Simpson’s latest novel. There are no longer stars, new heat records of 51°C records abound, koalas are extinct, the reef is dead.

Finley, her astro-photographer mother Dianella and their friends are spurred into a mission to recover everything they once held dear. Despite the novel’s incredibly effective world-building evoking a world in disarray, there is beauty in its homage to First Nations cosmology and lands, the stars, and the deeply relatable human story at its heart: that of family, kinship, love and resilience. This dystopian novel about the dangers of human inaction and despotic states has a dash of The Handmaid’s Tale about it and will keep you guessing until the very end.

WORDS TO SING THE WORLD ALIVE Jasmin McGaughey & The Poet’s Voice (eds)

UQP PB

$34.99

Hundreds of First Nations languages are spoken within Australia and this handsomely packaged tome provides the opportunity for readers to become acquainted with at least a few words from across this extraordinary range.

In its pages, 40 First Nations voices have generously shared a word or phrase of personal significance to them. Their contributions are eloquent and thoughtprovoking, with many describing how their selection has illuminated a specific part of their culture that influenced their approach to the world. A number of the contributors make reference to the existence of painful silences, as well as the difficulty of attempting to convey the full meaning of a word in a spoken language with the use of a foreign alphabet.

Highly Recommended BEST OF AUSTRALIAN POEMS 2024 Shastra Deo & Kate Lilley (eds)

$34.95

$32.99

BINA: FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES, OLD AND NEW Gari Tudor-Smith, Paul Williams & Felicity Meakins The incredible story of the resilience and recovery of Australia’s 400+ unique First Nations languages and many more dialects.

TOMORROW THERE WILL BE SUN

Miller’s 14th novel deals with themes that will be familiar to his many devoted readers – love, friendship, the value of art and the moral quandaries we often face in life.

Set in inner-city Sydney, this warm and witty novel is about the relationships between pets and their owners, and about how the past shapes the present.

An anthology of winning and highly commended entries from the 2024 Hope Prize, a short-story competition. All royalties from the book support mental-health charity Beyond Blue. December release.

Transit Lounge PB

$32.99

DIRRAYAWADHA Anita Heiss Simon & Schuster PB

$32.99

Simon & Schuster PB

$24.99

THINGS WILL CALM DOWN SOON Zoë Foster Blake

THE WEDDING FORECAST Nina Kenwood

Hair stylist and entrepreneur Kit Cooper is juggling work, needy family members, an unreliable romantic partner and single parenting. Will her life ever calm down?

The first adult novel from the author of It Sounded Better in My Head is a rom-com about Anna, whose destiny doesn’t always go to plan.

Atlantic PB

Heiss delivers another powerful historical novel about resistance, resilience and love during the frontier wars.

La Trobe PB $37.99

MY NAME IS GUCCI Sun Jung

Allen & Unwin PB

Puncher & Wattmann PB

Capturing the richness and diversity of contemporary Australian poetry, this annual anthology is edited by poets and features both previously published and unpublished poems.

THE DEAL Alex Miller

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Text PB

$34.99

International Fiction, Poetry & Essays ANNIHILATION Michel Houellebecq (translated by Shaun Whiteside)

Picador PB

$34.99

French literary titan Michel Houellebecq’s latest tome, said to be his final novel, kicks off with a series of disturbing cyber-attacks – most notably a chilling video depicting the guillotine decapitation of France’s Finance Minister. From there, the action ripples outwards to examine the life of civil servant Paul Raison as he grapples with a marriage breakdown, his father suffering from a stroke, and unspoken tensions within the family he finds himself thrust into again. Annihilation is an expansive and discursive novel teeming with ideas and tangents about personal histories, political machinations, surreal dreamscapes and popular culture. It expands and contracts as a presidential election gets underway and the attacks intensify, all the while fixated on the most personal of themes: love, loss, grief, ageing, death.

THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS Haruki Murakami (translated by Philip Gabriel)

Harvill Secker HB

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THE EERIE BOOK Margaret Armour (ed) illustrated by WB Macdougall

$29.99

Bodleian Library HB

Published by Oxford University’s august Bodleian Library, these beautifully presented volumes will make perfect gifts for book lovers. Book Curses is a collection of some of the most ferocious and humorous curses ever inscribed, including manuscript maledictions and disturbing warnings scribbled in printed books.

The Eerie Book is a chilling anthology first published in 1898. It features work by classic gothic authors Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Thomas De Quincey and Hans Christian Andersen alongside well-known and influential fairy tales and folklore. Each story in The Eerie Book is illustrated with a striking engraving by Art Nouveau artist William Macdougall.

Text PB

$34.99

BURNING QUESTIONS Margaret Atwood

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Hamish Hamilton HB

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Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young Polish engineer, has arrived in Görbersdorf, a German health resort. He seeks restoration in the rarefied air, occupying himself with forest strolls and endless idle discussions with his fellow residents. They argue philosophy and politics from dawn to dusk, seemingly only capable of agreeing on one thing: the superiority of the male being.

But behind the monotony, something is at work in Görbersdorf, a quiet darkness that watches the men and steadily fills its graveyard with bloodied corpses.

And perhaps something is at work within Wojnicz too, an emergence that began in his childhood and will culminate deep in the mountains. With The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk delivers a delicately crafted mystery that perfectly balances folk horror with a literary sensibility.

Is Margaret Atwood the greatest writer of our times? Quite possibly. Burning Questions is a collection of essays, talks and occasional thoughts that the great Canadian writer wrote between 2004 and 2021. Through her work, Atwood records the extraordinary changes that have taken place in our politics, our environment and our navigation of the world. During this period she also documents personal changes – the death of her partner, her changing family, and her consideration of the world. As always, she is erudite, clever and compassionate.

Bloomsbury PB

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Writer Ali Smith loves a series of interconnected novels, and Gliff is the first of two new interlocked works. Siblings Briar and Rose are left behind by their stepdad Leif in an abandoned house as he seeks to find their mother. But as ‘unverifiables’ – people who were never catalogued by the dystopian data system that governs their world – they’re at risk.

Smith expertly evokes a world desolated by climate change, where people wear ‘educators’ on their wrists and have their every movement and thought surveilled by authoritarian state actors. She is concerned with language – the gaps between a child’s comprehension and an adult’s understanding, the radical possibilities of words. Gliff is a spellbinding story interspersed with thought-provoking ruminations on the online world.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER Bernhard Schlink (translated by Charlotte Collins)

W&N PB

$34.99

Like The Reader, this novel is a literary reckoning with Germany’s past, movingly told and deeply absorbing. Kaspar is a bookseller whose wife Birgit has just died.

They met in East Berlin in the 1960s as students – he from the West, she from the East – and he arranged her escape.

In her papers he discovers Birgit had a child, and that she was deeply affected by the rupture of leaving both her home and her child. Now, long after reunification, he meets the granddaughter Birgit never knew she had. Sigrun delights in meeting Kaspar and visiting him in Berlin. Kaspar delights in their relationship. But she is the child of far-right parents with an inheritance of skewed beliefs. What, then, of her future? Of the country’s future?

INTERMEZZO Sally Rooney

ENTITLEMENT Rumaan Alam

$34.99

Chatto & Windus HB

GLIFF Ali Smith

THE EMPUSIUM Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

BOOK CURSES Eleanor Baker

Bodleian Library HB

It’s been six years since Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has released a fulllength novel, so The City and Its Uncertain Walls has been eagerly anticipated by his global readership. The novel is told in three parts, the first of which is based on Murakami’s 1980 short story of the same title. The book’s narrator moves between the real world and an imaginary city surrounded by a very high wall, working as a reader of dreams in a fantasy-world library and in a library of books in the real world. Murakami is known for his enigmatic, sometimes almost hallucinatory, narratives and this novel is no different. An ode to books and libraries, it is also a beguiling love story.

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Brooke Orr is a young, driven Black New Yorker living in ‘Obama’s placid America’ and working in philanthropy. As she becomes dangerously enmeshed with the billionaire she works for, Brooke builds a conviction bordering on madness that she can abscond fancy-free and footloose into the adjacent world of the rich and famous. Entitlement is simultaneously about the meaning and meaningless of money – it suffuses everything in the novel, from the reason Brooke’s job exists to the sociopolitical dynamics of her closest friendships. Alam delivers a riotously funny, outlandish, unbelievable romp about one woman’s ill-advised mission to prostrate herself at the altar of capitalism.

Faber PB

$34.99 Faber HB

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With Intermezzo, Sally Rooney firmly cements her place in the pantheon of literary greats. Ten years apart and perennially on the cusp of estrangement, two brothers – Peter and Ivan Koubek – grapple with what it means to love and be loved in the aftermath of their father’s death. The elder Peter is a successful barrister, ‘the kind of person who goes along the surface of life very smoothly’, while chess prodigy Ivan is ‘almost spiritually alone’. Separating them is a gulf of misunderstandings and incomprehension accumulated over a lifetime. A master at cataloguing the human condition, Rooney is astute to the materialities of living, the immutability of unspoken social norms, the inexplicable web that ties friends and family together.

Highly Recommended BEFORE WE FORGET KINDNESS Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by G Trousselot)

DAYS AT THE MORISAKI BOOKSHOP & MORE DAYS AT THE MORISAKI BOOKSHOP Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)

Picador PB

$19.99

The fifth book in the much-loved Before the Coffee Gets Cold series welcomes four new guests hoping to go back into their pasts before moving on to their futures.

CREATION LAKE Rachel Kushner

THE ECHOES Evie Wyld

Shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, Kushner’s latest novel is part spy novel, part profound treatise on human history.

Set between rural Australia and London, this powerful novel is about love, grief and pasts that refuse to stay hidden.

Jonathan Cape PB

$34.99

Heart-warming tales of daily life in a second-hand bookshop in Tokyo.

The first instalment of a planned series, this spy novel is set in 1960s Africa and Europe at the height of the Cold War.

From the author of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this is the first book in a new fantasy series about murder, magic and madness in post-WW2 London.

$34.99

Bloomsbury PB

$32.99

THE HOTEL AVOCADO Bob Mortimer

GOODNIGHT TOKYO Atsuhiro Yoshida (translated by Haydn Trowell)

Vintage PB

$34.99

THE GREAT WHEN Alan Moore

Viking PB

Manilla PB $24.99 each

GABRIEL’S MOON William Boyd

Simon & Schuster PB

Europa PB

$32.99

Interlinked short stories following driver Matsui as he guides his taxi around the streets of Tokyo, collecting passengers and their stories.

Comedian Bob Mortimer delivers a sequel to his bestselling (and hilariously bonkers) The Satsuma Complex. $34.99

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International Fiction, Poetry & Essays

Vintage HB

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LAPVONA Ottessa Moshfegh

OUR EVENINGS Alan Hollinghurst

TELL ME EVERYTHING Elizabeth Strout

This novel traverses very different ground to Ottessa Moshfegh’s cult hit My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but her wicked humour and superbly rendered characterisations of perversity remain intact. Lapvona is an exquisitely violent, debauched and depraved fable centred on the medieval fiefdom of its title. Every violence you can think of is materialised within its pages – murder, rape, child abuse, cannibalism, disembowelment, self-flagellation, plague, drought, famine. But narrated with Moshfegh’s distinguishing flat drollness, one can’t stop reading about the fate that befalls her sharply realised characters. It’s an unputdownable fairy tale, the darkest of its kind.

Some authors build worlds that you want to inhabit for as long as possible, characters that you want to stay with forever. Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst is indubitably one of those writers. He is also, through his fiction, an incisive commentator on modern Britain.

Our Evenings is the story of David Win, prodigiously intelligent and later a gifted actor, who gains a place at an exclusive school. There he meets Giles, the bullying son of the philanthropists who sponsor his scholarship. David, half Burmese and gay, spends much of his youth and early adulthood trying to find his place in the world while Giles becomes a pro-Brexit Tory who dogwhistles on immigration.

The emotional and intellectual richness here makes this a novel not to be missed.

In a small town in Maine, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge take it in turns to tell each other stories (yes, their fictional worlds have collided!). The two women try to figure out the point of these stories.

Eventually Lucy says: ‘People. They’re about people and the lives they lead.’

And that is exactly the point of Elizabeth Strout’s fiction, letting us into people’s inner thoughts and shifting emotions.

They may be the thoughts and emotions of made-up people, but they are no less real for that. Strout has an unparalleled ability to portray friendships and love, and the way people know other people and themselves.

For that, and her spare evocative style, she is truly one of the great novelists of our time.

Picador PB

$34.99

In North Dakota, along the Red River Valley that gives this powerful novel its title, lives unfold on earth that holds rich layers of history. But that earth is being desiccated by intensive sugar beet farming and those lives are being shaped by forces beyond people’s control.

It’s 2008 and the global financial crisis has hit. Crystal, descended from the Ojibwe, hauls beets from farm to processing plant for little money. Her daughter Kismet is 18 years old and somehow finds herself engaged to Gary, the son of a farming family, even though she has another, sortof boyfriend. Events swirl and intensify.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Louise Erdrich gradually reveals more about her richly textured characters, drawing us inexorably into their history and fates.

$34.99

Michael Joseph PB

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3. Where is the Vega Archipelago?

THE MIGHTY RED Louise Erdrich

Corsair PB

Viking HB

PAPER BOAT: POEMS Margaret Atwood

Chatto & Windus PB

WAS $55 NOW $44.99 $

Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood is as prolific a poet as she is a fiction writer, having penned an equal number of poetry collections and novels (18, if you’re wondering). Paper Boat brings together six decades of her poems – including brand-new poems never before published – in an impressive and expansive tome. The poems chart Atwood’s evolution in style, but also reflect the highly particular political climates and social contexts that informed their construction.

As she once wrote, ‘Poems are embedded in their time and place. They can’t renounce their roots. But, with luck, they may also transcend them.’ Fans of Atwood’s landscape-shaping literature have much to savour in these near-600 pages.

ODYSSEY Stephen Fry

PLAYGROUND Richard Powers

This is the final volume in Stephen Fry’s series of prose retellings of classical myths, the first three titles being Mythos, Heroes and Troy. In Odyssey, Fry retells the epic poem in snappy and colourful prose, following the homeward journeys of Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Helen and even Aeneas but focusing, as is right, on Odysseus’ eventful 10-year voyage home from Troy. We meet mortals such as Cassandra, Dido and Clytemnestra, as well as the gods who play with their fates. Along the way, Odysseus lingers with nymphs, sorceresses and the Lotus-Eaters; battles monsters such as Cyclopes and Scylla; and pines for his wife Penelope and son Telemachus.

Retold with great brio and including footnotes illustrating Fry’s scholarly research, this volume is a wonderful introduction to Homer’s masterwork.

New York Times book reviewer Alexandra Jacobs uses a suitably ecological metaphor when describing the American novelist Richard Powers, describing him as ‘a grand old oak of American letters: a towering, sturdy figure often overlooked for flashier species’. Powers’ latest novel, his 14th, once again addresses issues around science, technology and the environment (the major themes of his writing), with the action this time set on a Polynesian island called Makatea that has been marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. Economic and environmental considerations clash and artificial intelligence poses threats as well as promises as the residents of the island prepare to vote on whether to support the project in this powerfully told cautionary tale.

Hutchinson Heinemann PB

$34.99

TIME OF THE CHILD Niall Williams

Bloomsbury PB

$32.99

This is a novel to sink into, not rush through.

Niall Williams returns to the damp-soaked Irish town of Faha, the setting of his previous book This is Happiness. He also returns to his distinctive writing style: meandering sentences and dense syntax that slowly reveal themselves as piercing arrows into the heart of the matter.

Faha is a place where the river puffs out its chest, and time goes round and round. It stands for every town – where nothing happens but everything human is encompassed. Something does happen.

A child is abandoned, found by a boy, and then secretly adopted by an old doctor and his daughter. Are they heading towards a disaster arising from a terrible misunderstanding, or a happiness born of great but quiet love?

TOWARD ETERNITY Anton Hur

Harper Via PB

$34.99

This is speculative fiction in the broadest sense of the word: not just speculation on what the future might look like but speculation on what might make a human; what might constitute a soul; what might define intelligence. In the not-so-distant future, a researcher finds a cure for cancer using nanites, perhaps to be understood as tiny AI robots, to replace damaged cells and confer immortality on the recipients.

But this experimental cure is a Pandora’s box, leading to a wholly changed world.

The story is told by all sorts of beings as we move into a much later future, and eventually into eternity. This assuredly written, high-concept first novel from renowned translator Anton Hur is also about language, memory and love.

Highly Recommended THE INSTRUMENTALIST Harriet Constable

THE LAST DREAM Pedro Almodóvar (translated by Frank Wynne)

Set in 18th-century Venice, this debut novel about musical rivalry and ambition reimagines the true story of violinist Anna Maria della Pietà, star pupil of Antonio Vivaldi.

A collection of 12 unpublished stories written between the late 1960s and the present day reflecting Almodóvar’s humour, obsessions and love of storytelling.

Bloomsbury PB

$32.99

Harvill Secker PB

$34.99

INVISIBLE KITTIES Yu Yoyo (translated by Jeremy Tiang)

$24.99

$39.99

$32.99

Viking PB

A compilation of the Nobel laureate’s journals recording travels around the world, stories of his family, details of his writing process and much more.

$34.99

Hamish Hamilton PB

Granta PB

$32.99

These short stories from an award-winning Argentinian writer transpose the conventions of European gothic horror to the Latin American world.

Three characters living along two great rivers, the Tigris and the Thames, are magically connected by a single drop of water that remanifests across the centuries.

THE VOYAGE HOME Pat Barker

A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE Mariana Enriquez (translated

by Megan McDowell)

Oneworld PB

The latest novel from the author of God Shot follows over-achiever Clove as she faces exposure of the violent past she has worked hard to both hide and recover from.

THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY Elif Shafak

Hamish Hamilton PB

MADWOMAN Chelsea Bieker

HarperCollins PB

This whimsical Chinese novel is about a young couple whose daily life is disrupted by their newly adopted cat.

MEMORIES OF DISTANT MOUNTAINS Orhan Pamuk (translated by Ekin Oklap)

$34.99

The war in Troy is over, Cassandra is enslaved by the victorious Agamemnon and Clytemnestra awaits her husband’s return so that she can wreak vengeance for her daughter’s death.

Crime & Thrillers

Simon & Schuster PB

$34.99

BLOOD LIKE MINE Stuart Neville

EVERYWHERE WE LOOK Martine Kropkowski

THE VALLEY Chris Hammer

A mother is fleeing down the lonely highways of America with her daughter, determined to keep a lid on their grisly secret. A dedicated FBI Special Agent is obsessively hunting a vicious killer who only targets men, and does so with a highly unusual and specific method. As these two narratives circle around one another, entwining ever closer, the stakes in this pulsating game of cat-and-mouse rise ever higher. Stuart Neville skilfully balances the dual perspectives throughout the novel, never letting the tension slacken, and his ability to undercut gruesome moments of horror with tenderness adds emotional heft. A pitch-dark thriller with a supernatural flavour, Blood Like Mine is a heart-in-mouth read.

Cassandra, Melissa and Bridie forged a friendship when their children started in primary school. Traumatised by the death of another school mum, Sarah, they decide to leave their families at home and head to a country vineyard for a couple of days of bonding. However, their weekend escape doesn’t turn out as they had hoped, with strange events unfolding. A young woman has gone missing in the nearby town, the locals are behaving in a very creepy way and there even seem to be supernatural forces at work – are the three friends in danger? Martine Kropkowski builds tension and dread chapter by chapter in her page-turning debut novel, which questions how our society addresses and deals with domestic abuse.

Australian crime writer Chris Hammer is skilled in weaving together dual narratives occurring over decades to deliver gripping tales of murders that have their roots in past events. This time around, police detectives Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are summoned to the Valley, a small settlement in the Monaro region of NSW, to investigate the death of a local entrepreneur. They soon realise that this isn’t the first suspicious death that has occurred in the Valley in recent times and that many of these deaths may be linked to the local, now dormant, gold mine. This terrific novel is one of Hammer’s best to date, with a taut plot and further development of the backstories and characters of its likeable detective protagonists.

Ultimo PB

$34.99

$32.99

This delightful historical crime novel had its genesis in author Lainie Anderson’s PhD, which investigated the life of Kate Cocks, an extraordinary woman who began a career in the South Australian Women’s Police Branch in 1915. The state’s first woman police constable (and one of the first in Australia), she developed a formidable reputation as a welfare worker and crime-prevention officer over a two-decade-long police career. Anderson brings this marvellous character alive on the page, pairing her with fellow woman police constable Ethel Bromley and having them investigate a series of fictional crimes including the murder of shop assistant Dora Black and the mysterious disappearance of other young women in Adelaide. Sinister goings-on are occurring in the City of Churches in 1917 but we readers need not fear – Miss Cocks is bound to crack the case!

Allen & Unwin PB

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THE DREAM Iain Ryan

Ultimo PB

$34.99

Allen & Unwin PB

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LEAVE THE GIRLS BEHIND Jacqueline Bublitz

THE DEATH OF DORA BLACK Lainie Anderson

Hachette PB

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In her second novel, New Zealand writer Jacqueline Bublitz, author of the bestselling Before You Knew My Name, returns to a storyline exploring society’s obsession with true crime. The story opens with Ruth-Ann Baker, whose childhood friend had been abducted and murdered 19 years before, learning that another young girl has gone missing in the same place and circumstances.

A local teacher had been convicted of the original crime and died in prison, but Ruth-Ann begins to think that he might have worked with an accomplice, one who was now reenacting the same horrifying scenario. Investigating this theory dredges up traumas from the past, some of which manifest in supernatural ways. Bublitz skilfully builds tension and adds plot twists aplenty, ensuring that the reader will stay engrossed until the final pages.

WE SOLVE MURDERS Richard Osman

Viking PB

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WHEN IT RAINS Dave Warner

4. Who designed the iconic Bouclé Jacket?

It’s 1982 in Queensland, a time when corrupt policemen and politicians do the bidding of amoral and greedy businessmen.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than on the Gold Coast, where the skyline is radically changing, organised crime is thriving and this novel’s three protagonists find themselves embroiled in a spiralling situation associated with the development of a theme park. Like 2023’s The Strip, which was the first volume of Iain Ryan’s Brisbane Quartet, The Dream is hard-boiled noir of the highest order. Using short, individually narrated chapters to build pace and tension, Ryan delivers a shotgun blast of a novel that is populated by a cast of colourfully crooked characters and has a tightly plotted standalone storyline. Bring on volume three, please. December release.

THE LEDGE Christian White

Affirm PB

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Christian White’s novels are fast-paced and full of twists, featuring distinctive settings and relatable characters. The story in his latest book unfurls in alternating narratives – the first in 1999, when four teenage schoolfriends in the town of West Haven find themselves covering up a serious crime, and the second in the present day, when one of the friends returns to the town after the discovery of human remains in the nearby state forest. The influence of Stephen King’s 1986 novel It is obvious (and acknowledged by White in an author’s note) and the result is White’s most compelling novel since The Nowhere Child.

Kudos to writer and comedian Richard Osman. After the phenomenal global success of his four Thursday Murder Club novels, he could have stuck with his bestselling formula and moved straight on to book five. Instead, Osman has written the first instalment of a new series featuring retired policeman Steve Wheeler and his daughter-in-law Amy, a private security specialist. In We Solve Murders, Steve and Amy join up with characters including a party-loving crimefiction writer and the members of Steve’s pub-quiz team to crack a dangerous case involving international money laundering, hired assassins of various abilities and the grisly deaths of social-media influencers.

Featuring relatable characters of every age and with a fast-paced and clever plot, this cosy-crime caper is an absolute delight.

Fremantle PB

$34.99

He’s been writing critically acclaimed novels since 1995 and won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Australian Crime Fiction in 2016 with Before It Breaks, so it’s surprising that Dave Warner isn’t better known by readers of Australian crime fiction.

Now with 12 novels under his belt – most notably the Dan Clement and Snowy Lane books set in Western Australia – Warner’s well-honed and evocative writing style is showcased in his latest book, the fourth in the Dan Clement series of tightly plotted police procedurals set in Broome and the remote Kimberley region. When It Rains sports a likeable and relatable protagonist, a stalker with retribution on his mind and some nasty scenarios involving crocodiles.

It’s a worthy addition to the ever-swelling ranks of top-drawer outback noir.

Highly Recommended A CASE OF MATRICIDE Graeme Macrae Burnet

GIRL FALLING Hayley Scrivenor

MURDLE AUSTRALIA GT Karber

SHANGHAI Joseph Kanon

Set in a small French town, Burnet’s latest novel features Chief Inspector Georges Gorski, who is grappling with local crimes as well as personal demons.

The second book from the author of international bestseller Dirt Town is set in the Blue Mountains and deals with issues of guilt, obsession and revenge.

The Murdle phenomenon comes to our shores with this collection of 50 murder mystery logic puzzles, which challenge the reader to find out whodunit, where and why.

Another sophisticated thriller from the author of The Good German, this book is set in pre-WW2 Shanghai, where refugees are sheltering and vice proliferates.

Text PB

$34.99

Macmillan PB

WAS $34.99 NOW $29.99

Allen & Unwin PB

$32.99

Simon & Schuster PB

$34.99

$ DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK Kate Atkinson

$34.99

PRIZE CATCH Alan Carter

THE WAITING Michael Connelly

Rebus once put criminals behind bars, and now he’s joined them there. When a murder occurs in a locked cell, he can’t help but investigate.

The salmon-farming industry in Tasmania and war crimes in Afghanistan have inspired the plot of this fast-paced thriller set in the island state.

Renée Ballard and her LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit volunteers crack a high-profile cold case with the help of Harry Bosch and his police-officer daughter Maddie.

Orion PB

Doubleday PB

Jackson Brodie returns in this witty twist on a classic crime-fiction trope, reuniting with DC Reggie Chase to solve a series of crimes at an English country house.

MIDNIGHT AND BLUE Ian Rankin

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Michael Connelly PB

Fremantle PB

$34.99

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Biography & Memoir ALL THE FREQUENT TROUBLES OF OUR DAYS Rebecca Donner

Canongate HB

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Mildred Harnack was an American member of the German resistance based in Berlin who was executed on the order of Hitler in 1943. Harnack burned her journal before her death, and this biography written by her great-great-niece pieces together the story of a remarkable life using a wide range of sources including diary entries, survivor’s testimony and declassified documents that only came to light after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Both Harnack’s story and the period are beautifully captured in this fast-paced thriller-style war biography. Donner writes with a sharp, novelistic style, describing many fascinating characters and sharing the activities of a group of heroic resistance fighters.

BRAINSTORM Richard Scolyer

Allen & Unwin PB

$34.99

AUSTRALIAN GOSPEL Lech Blaine

Black Inc PB

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With such an unlikely and gripping story, Australian Gospel reads more like a novel than non-fiction. However, this is carefully researched, beautifully told fact.

Lech Blaine’s parents, Tom and Lenore, fostered a rambunctious brood of kids, bestowing on them unconditional love and a country upbringing in Queensland pubs. But Tom and Lenore’s love could not keep the family entirely safe from the threat of Michael and Mary Shelley, the biological parents of three of the children.

The Shelleys’ extreme Christian views and unbalanced minds saw them stalking and threatening the Blaines (and others), sowing fear and uncertainty. At times disturbing but also reassuring, Australian Gospel sees Blaine trace family inheritances of abandonment, addiction, intelligence and love with a clear but empathetic eye.

Macmillan HB

$36.99

Miegunyah HB

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HarperCollins HB

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The first volume of a two-part memoir, this much-anticipated release follows the early life of Cherilyn Sarkisian, more commonly known as Cher. It starts with her childhood, which was surrounded by singers, actors and a mother who inspired her in spite of their difficult relationship.

We read about how Cher met Sonny Bono in 1962, when she was only 16, and how the two eventually started a personal relationship and went on to perform as the singing duo Sonny & Cher and host The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Show on TV. Cher also recorded as a solo artist at this time, but the bulk of this volume traces the highly complicated 10-year relationship with Sonny. The second part of the memoir will be released in 2025.

4th Estate HB

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Since his debut low-budget feature Following (1998), Christopher Nolan has thrilled and confounded cinemagoers with his non-linear approach to moviemaking. In this glossy and detailed analysis, author and film journalist Ian Nathan traces Nolan’s career from struggling London student to director of Hollywood blockbusters including Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception and Dunkirk. Beautifully packaged in a hardcover sleeve and illustrated with movie stills throughout, this is a great addition to any cinephile’s collection.

Noni Hazlehurst has built her longawaited memoir around a collection of short, breezy chapters detailing her 70-odd years on the planet. Wonderfully erudite and opinionated, Noni’s passion for storytelling shines as she shares the ups-and-downs and precariousness that is often the life of an actor. Her chameleonlike career has ranged from a two-decade stint presenting Playschool to starring roles in films such as the adaptation of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip and hosting Better Homes and Gardens with her then husband John Jarratt. Dropping the Mask provides a fascinating peek into the extraordinary and authentic life and career of one of our most respected actors, writers, presenters and broadcasters.

THE ELEMENTS OF MARIE CURIE Dava Sobel

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: THE ICONIC FILMMAKER AND HIS WORK Ian Nathan Quarto HB

Painter and printmaker Fred Williams kept a daily diary from 1963 until his untimely death in 1982, aged only 55. Recording life in the studio and at home with his family, as well as his contact with artists, dealers and other members of the art world, the diaries offer an intimate picture of the creative process of one of the greatest Australian artists of the 20th century.

Edited by art historian and gallery director Patrick McCaughey, who was a personal friend of the artist and authored the first monograph on Williams’ work in 1987, this volume contains colour reproductions of many of the artist’s extraordinary landscape paintings alongside his words about their evolution and execution.

DROPPING THE MASK Noni Hazlehurst

CHER THE MEMOIR: PART ONE Cher

A BIT ON THE SIDE Virginia Trioli ABC broadcaster Virginia Trioli describes this food-focused memoir as ‘a book of life experiences, travels, memories and investigations into the sweet and the sour, the bitter and the sharp, of a life of small chosen moments of joy’. Equating these moments with side dishes or shared plates, Trioli celebrates the ‘bit-players’ at our tables – the meunière rather than the fish, the stuffing rather than the turkey.

Vignettes cover her childhood as one of eight always-ravenous siblings; student days in inner-city Melbourne; foodie travels in France, Italy and Japan; and homecooked meals with her blended family.

Readers who delight in simple but profound pleasures such as a tangy Béarnaise sauce or a perfectly dressed green salad are sure to enjoy devouring A Bit on the Side.

One of two medical directors at Melanoma Institute Australia, Dr Richard Scolyer has dedicated years to groundbreaking cancer research. When, in 2023, he was found to have brain cancer that specialists described as ‘incurable’, he refused to accept the diagnosis. Told he would likely only have a year or so to live, he instead chose to make himself the subject of a world-first experimental treatment based on melanoma science. In Brainstorm, which has been written with journalist Garry Maddox, Scolyer recounts how he came to make this decision and how successful this experimental treatment has been to date.

His hope, of course, is that his case will advance scientific understanding, saving his life and the lives of many others.

Truly inspirational.

THE DIARIES OF FRED WILLIAMS 1963–1970 Patrick McCaughey

HarperCollins PB

$34.99

Did you know that Marie Curie, when still Marya Sklodowska, was part of the ‘Flying University’ – an underground, mobile university for women? At that time women in (Russian-occupied) Poland were refused admittance to regular universities.

This book by the bestselling author of Longitude paints a vivid picture of Curie’s life, including her loving relationship with physicist Pierre Curie, the battles they fought for her own work to be recognised, and the young women whose scientific work she supported. Descriptions such as the image of the glowing radioactive samples in her drafty warehouse of a laboratory are wonderful. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the personal life of Madame Curie, as well as of her scientific discoveries and the academic, political and industrial world she inhabited.

Highly Recommended DIDION & BABITZ Lili Anolik

FAIRWEATHER AND CHINA Claire Roberts

Atlantic PB

$34.99

Vanity Fair writer Lili Anolik employs Eve Babitz’s diary-like letters to reveal the complicated subtext behind the tumultuous friendship of two major American writers.

WAS $59.99 NOW $24.99

$ DINNER FOR VAMPIRES Bethany Joy Lenz

IZABELA THE VALIANT Adam Zamoyski

American TV star Lenz (One Tree Hill) writes about her time in, and eventual escape from, an American cult that started as a Bible study group for Hollywood creatives.

An account of the eventful life of Izabela Czartoryska, an 18thcentury Polish aristocrat who counted notable philosophers, politicians, writers and royal figures among her acquaintance.

Gallery PB

$34.99

$34.99

A biography of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish military engineer, statesman and champion of liberty whose name graces Australia’s tallest mountain.

An elegantly written and insightful coming-of-age memoir from the author of Call Me by Your Name.

Faber PB

$34.99

NOBLE FRAGMENTS Michael Visontay

MORNINGS WITH MY CAT MII Mayumi Inaba (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

HarperCollins HB

$45

MY ROMAN YEAR André Aciman

Hachette PB

Miegunyah HB

Ian Fairweather lived and worked in China for extended periods and this lavishly illustrated book demonstrates how this experience heavily influenced his artistic vision and output.

KOSCIUSZKO Anthony Sharwood

Scribe PB

Harvill Secker PB

$32.99

Finally published in English, this Japanese modern classic chronicles the author’s 20-year bond with her cat, meditating on solitude, independence, companionship and the writing life.

$36.99

Visontay plunges into the arcane world of book collectors to investigate the fate of pages from a Gutenberg Bible scandalously broken up and sold in 1921.

Biography & Memoir

9

We Are the Stars Gina Chick

LONG YARN SHORT Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts

In this searingly honest memoir, Gina Chick recounts the events of her tumultuous first 50 years, concluding just before embarking on the Alone Australia survivalist challenge that made hers a household name. The third in a maternal line of noted memoirists S&S/Summit PB – Charmian Clift was her grandmother WAS $36.99 and her mother, Suzanne, wrote the NOW $29.99 bestselling Searching for Charmian – $ Chick has clearly inherited the family talent. From the delightful chapters on ‘the glorious, tumbling chaos’ of her childhood to the harrowing account of the death of her three-year-old daughter, Blaise, Chick confesses her mistakes, acknowledges her vulnerabilities and leaves the reader marvelling at her extraordinary resilience.

connections. Suddenly we see that this particular disaster was the first step in a path of hope. Or that triumph actually began a darker chapter, which led to wisdom. If we had made one choice differently, we would not be here now. I would not be sitting in this green chair, writing these words.

One thing. So how can any of it be a mistake? What if there are no mistakes at all, only lessons? And what if there is a blessing in each lesson, a gift we get to embody, bring into the world in our marrow and meat, the red fleshy centre of our wisening heart?

From Gina: ‘It’s 6am. I’ve snuck into Gertrude and Alice Bookstore, barefoot and bleary-eyed. The green velvet chairs beckon, and here, tucked into a wilderness of books, I begin to write. All around me, I’m sure I hear the books rustle and sigh. I wonder if they scoot around at night, Toy Story style, riffling secret pages for each other, taking turns to share their vulnerable innards. Like I’ve done in this memoir. Writing is such a strange and beautiful alchemy of revelation.

Life is a tumultuous, messy, horrible, divine magic-carpet ride, and so is We Are the Stars. I hope this book sweeps you up, makes you laugh until tea snorts out your nose, cry until you can’t speak, cringe and squirm with discomfort, then melt into release and the joy that comes when we remember we are loved, and enough, and part of something vast and beautiful. I hope you find something in here that is your story, because that is the true point of this book. All our stories are really one story. Ultimately, we are the stars.’

HarperCollins PB

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I wrote We Are the Stars in a glorious frenzy, some of it in this velvet chair.

Parts of the story have been falling out of me for years in blogs and journal entries. Parts blazed through from the Muse so fiercely I had to hang on while my skin split and a snowstorm of words whirled me into some new version of myself, killing and birthing me at the same time.

For me, lives don’t make sense looking forwards. It’s only when we track backwards that we make the ‘a-ha’

Is it possible to make peace with a dark family history? Burkhard Bilger, whose parents had immigrated to Oklahoma from Germany after WW2, hardly knew his grandfather growing up. Then one day his mother received a packet of faded letters sent from Germany, and his grandfather’s Nazi past was laid bare. Bilger is a staff writer at the New Yorker, and this memoir is so thoroughly researched and skilfully written it draws easy comparisons with Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with the Amber Eyes. After journeying to Europe to investigate his grandfather’s wartime history, Bilger must confront what he describes as a ‘poisoned heritage’ and grapple with a complex and confronting task – how to make peace with this heritage without perpetuating its wrongs.

Jilya (‘my child’ in the Nyamal language) is an inspiring, humbling and at times harrowing account of how a First Nations woman became the first Aboriginal person to complete a PhD in Clinical Psychology and go on to become one of Australia’s leading psychologists. Westerman, who grew up in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and is a passionate advocate for change in the approach to, and treatment of, Aboriginal mental health, interweaves her own story with those of the people she has cared for in her practice. The book also covers her establishment of a charitable foundation and scholarship program in which she mentors Indigenous people to follow in her footsteps.

Macmillan PB

$36.99

4th Estate HB

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Most Australians will be familiar with Max Dupain’s iconic 1937 photograph Sunbaker, but far fewer will be familiar with the life and full artistic oeuvre of its creator. Curator and writer Helen Ennis aims to rectify this situation in her authoritative 532-page biography of our country’s pre-eminent modern photographer. Ennis begins with Dupain’s childhood in Sydney’s inner west and continues through to his death in 1992, paying due respect to his massive body of work, which covered areas as diverse as fashion, design, portraiture, industry, architecture and art. So significant was Dupain’s photographic influence, Ennis argues, ‘that modern Australian art, culture and society cannot be imagined without it’.

Many of Dupain’s best-known photographs are reproduced in the book, alongside vignettes about their origin and influence.

MURRIYANG: SONG OF TIME Stan Grant

S&S Bundyi HB

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5. Who was South Australia’s first woman police constable?

FROM HERE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN Lisa Marie Presley with Riley Keough In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her oldest daughter, actress Riley Keough, to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir. A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, leaving the task unfinished. She had, however, recorded memories of her childhood and later life onto audio tape, and these tapes are what Riley used as the basis of From Here to the Great Unknown.

We read of Lisa Marie’s early years with Elvis at Graceland, living in Los Angeles with her mother Priscilla, marrying Michael Jackson, coping (or not) with the suicide of her son, Ben, and battling with addiction and depression. Towards the end of this raw and unfiltered account of a life, Keough writes about her mother: ‘I wondered how many times a heart can break’, a sentiment bound to be shared by the reader.

MAX DUPAIN: A PORTRAIT Helen Ennis

This is what I hope to share with you.

JILYA Tracy Westerman

$34.99

$34.99

These are some of the connections I made when I wrote this book. We share so many threads in this tapestry of life.

All of us love and lose, we grieve and we dream. We’re grown from cells of this living planet, so we are all, in our bones, wild. We stare at the stars and yearn for something ineffable.

FATHERLAND Burkhard Bilger

UQP PB

UQP PB

At the age of 10, Vanessa TurnbullRoberts was forcibly removed from her family and community and placed in and out of various care placements until she managed to escape the system and return to Country. Now a practising lawyer and mother herself, she tells her story of survival while also presenting a blazing argument for us all to work towards a better future for First Nations youth. By speaking directly to the reader, Turnbull-Roberts creates a powerful sense of intimacy and urgency. She draws from her professional life to situate her own experience within the wider landscape of Australia’s family policing system and makes practical suggestions on what steps can be taken. Long Yarn Short is an eloquent memoir that demands action.

Part meditation on God and the meaning of time, part non-linear memoir, part reflection on his father (Wiradjuri elder Stan Grant Snr), this book by First Nations journalist and writer Stan Grant is a deeply personal exploration of spirituality and belief in today’s world. In his impassioned closing speech when standing down as presenter from the ABC’s Q+A, Grant highlighted his need to step away from the media to take stock of his life, which he felt had lost direction after years spent working in the field. Murriyang is Grant’s response to that crisis, a re-calibration of his inner compass, finding solace in the things that had been an inspiration growing up, and rediscovering the love and hope missing in the media world of which he had been a part. December release.

PERSONALITY AND POWER Ian Kershaw JUST DON’T BE A D**KHEAD Kasey Chambers

Hardie Grant PB

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The title of this memoir reflects Kasey Chamber’s personal philosophy, the rule she strives to live by. Not, she tells us, because it is profound or inspirational, but because it is real. And authenticity is something that is clear on every page as she charts her extraordinary journey from an itinerant childhood in the Nullarbor to a career as a globally successful singer/ songwriter. Kasey writes about her challenges with body image, the break-up of two relationships, the instant success of her debut solo album The Captain and balancing her job as a touring musician with her role as a mother of three. Like most of us, she suffers from self-doubt, fear and anxiety but copes with this by songwriting from the heart and creating world-class country music.

Allen Lane HB

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Here, English historian Ian Kershaw explores how individual leaders can alter the course of history. Focusing on the modern era, Personality and Power is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand 12 of the leaders – some dictators, others democrats – who were instrumental in shaping modern Europe. How far is the leader’s power shaped by personality, and how much by circumstance, Kershaw asks. And what was it about these people and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and sometimes murderous power? Analysing the characters, strengths, working styles and mistakes of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, de Gaulle, Tito, Adenauer, Franco, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Kohl, Kershaw provides an important framework for understanding power and how it is used and abused.

10

Allen Lane PB

$36.99

Biography & Memoir THE PLACE OF TIDES James Rebanks

THE SEASON Helen Garner

Sheep farmer and author James Rebanks (The Shepherd’s Life) has written extensively about his farming life in the English Lake District. In his latest book, he takes us on a trip to the Vega Archipelago, a group of islands in the Norwegian Sea. Rebanks’ first visit resulted in a chance meeting with an elderly woman who still practised the ancient tradition of protecting eider ducks and their eggs during the laying season and collecting the eiderdown for quilt making. Transfixed by this initial meeting, he went on to spend a breeding season with her. In this stunningly remote landscape, the two worked side-by-side while Rebanks documented the days and weeks that would be her last year working.

On the parks and ovals of Melbourne, an inner-suburban under-16s boys footy team trains and battles, the players shimmering endlessly from boy to man and back again. They are watched by Helen Garner, whose youngest grandchild is on the team. Relishing both the footy and the opportunity to get to know her grandson better, she decided to take this team and their game as her subject – football as meditation, opera, religion.

But this is Helen Garner, whose precise mind and acute writing are as evident as ever, so The Season is about much more.

It’s about masculinity (mostly the nontoxic kind), youth and age, families and community. It’s about Garner herself.

And it has the best explanation ever of why footballing boys so often sport mullets!

Text PB

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A POLITICAL MEMOIR Robert Manne

La Trobe HB

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Aptly subtitled ‘Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and the Culture Wars’, this honest and engaging book is a memoir with a difference. Presented in five parts, it moves from the private (son, father) to the public (teacher, essayist), focusing on the published essays that made Robert Manne what his publisher describes as ‘Australia’s leading public intellectual’.

Tracing the rhythms not only of his career but also of political commentary over the past 50 years, Manne looks in detail at the essays on subjects including the Stolen Generations, censorship and climate change that made him a target of both right-wing and left-wing commentators.

December release.

MUP PB

$29.99

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Written the year before his own death from cancer, Jewish academic and author Mark Raphael Baker’s A Season of Death is an attimes overwhelming and poignant account of the death of his first wife and brother from cancer, followed by the death of his father, all in a seven-year period. As his life moves on, the book also charts Baker’s relationship and marriage to his second wife, and the birth of their daughter after many attempts at assisted conception.

Soon after, in a cruel twist of fate, he himself is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

In this searingly raw and yet beautifully life-affirming memoir, Baker reflects on life, death and family, touching on his parents’ Holocaust experiences and his own cultural and academic life in Melbourne.

Century HB

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In 1972, when The Godfather was released, Al Pacino was 32 years old and only had two previous films under his belt. A boy from a single-parent working-class family in the South Bronx, he had been eking out an existence working odd jobs and performing in avant-garde theatre. But with the instant success of Coppola’s film, Pacino became a huge star and bankable Hollywood asset, a state of affairs that has endured over his six-decade-long movie career and 60-plus films. In Sonny Boy, Pacino writes about growing up with his mentally unwell mother, running wild as a teenager and learning his craft at New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts and at the Actor’s Studio under Lee Strasberg. He also reflects on his personal relationships, his great film and theatre roles and his favourite collaborators.

Best known for his international bestseller The Book Thief, Australian writer Markus Zusak’s new book is a rough-and-tumble memoir centred around the three dogs (and not forgetting the two cats) his family have shared their lives with. In this pitch-perfect love letter to his three rambunctious canines, we follow the ups and downs of the now-deceased Reuben and Archer, and the family’s most recent adoptee, Frosty – a COVID arrival. Beautifully written, with plenty of laugh-out-loud episodes and tug-at-the-heartstrings moments, this is a tale that dog owners who have loved and lost an unruly mongrel are sure to nod their heads knowingly at. Mixing slapstick with the chaotic and tenderness with the heartfelt, Three Wild Dogs is storytelling at its very best.

THROUGH HER EYES Melissa Roberts & Trevor Watson (eds)

Hardie Grant PB

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SONNY BOY Al Pacino

THE POSITION OF SPOONS: AND OTHER INTIMACIES Deborah Levy

Hamish Hamilton HB

Picador HB

A SEASON OF DEATH: A MEMOIR Mark Raphael Baker

6. What is Cherilyn Sarkisian’s better-known name?

Playwright, poet and novelist Deborah Levy is best known (and hugely admired) for her ‘Living Autobiography’ trilogy, which comprises three titles: Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate. In those books she ruminates on subjects including modern womanhood, creative identity and personal freedom.

This latest work, a collection of 35 short pieces of writing, returns to these themes while focusing on literary and artistic muses who have shaped Levy’s life and work as a writer. The book’s title perhaps references TS Eliot’s Prufrock (‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’) – Levy’s units of measurement are the people, ideas and places that have shaped her singular literary imagination.

THREE WILD DOGS AND THE TRUTH Markus Zusak

Historically the domain of male correspondents, the newsroom is famous for hard-boiled journalists covering the big issues of the day. In this workplace, women journalists were generally confined to the pages covering fashion and the home. Through Her Eyes is a celebration of Australia’s women news correspondents who went against this grain, trailblazing a path into the field and onto the front pages. We hear from and about some of Australia’s leading correspondents, many still working in the field today, with the book’s timeline covering world events from 1939 to 2022 and highlighting correspondents including Lorraine Stumm, who reported from Hiroshima days after the war ended, and Lynne O’Donnell, who covered the war in Afghanistan for 20 years.

THE VOICE INSIDE John Farnham with Poppy Stockell

Hachette HB

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Born in London but largely bred in Melbourne, John Farnham was a pop idol in the 1960s and 1970s (remember ‘Sadie the Cleaning Lady’ and ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’?) but found his singing career on the skids in the early 1980s. Then, in 1986, his Whispering Jack album with its powerhouse single ‘You’re the Voice’ rocketed up the local and international charts, eventually becoming one of the highest-selling albums ever released by an Australian singer. This memoir charts the highs and lows of Farnham’s career, including both the good times and the dark times when record companies turned their backs and he faced financial ruin. It is sure to engage and entertain his many fans.

Highly Recommended THE PASSION OF PRIVATE WHITE Don Watson

THE STORY OF ART WITHOUT MEN Katy Hessel

Scribner HB

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The story of a 50-year relationship between Neville White, anthropologist and Vietnam veteran, and an isolated clan in north-east Arnhem Land.

$29.99

WILD THING Sue Prideaux

The lead singer of Savage Garden writes about his traumatic childhood, dealing with fame and navigating his sexuality in a world – and industry – that has not always been accepting.

This detailed biography debunks many of the myths surrounding the life of French painter Paul Gauguin, while confirming others.

Penguin PB

Hutchinson Heinemann PB A new paperback edition of Hessel’s influential book about the largely unrecognised history of female artistic endeavour.

UNLOVABLE Darren Hayes

$36.99

Faber HB

$59.99

$ SQUAT John Safran

THIS IS AFGHANISTAN 2014–2021 Andrew Quilty

Penguin PB

$36.99

Why did documentary maker and satirist John Safran spend a week squatting in one of Kanye West’s LA mansions? Read this book and find out.

Bloomsbury PB

Miegunyah HB

WAS $90 NOW $24.99

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Through photographs and text, Australian photojournalist Andrew Quilty records life in Afghanistan in the years leading up to the withdrawal of US troops.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A DREAM Tim Minchin

WANT Gillian Anderson (ed)

$34.99

Collected and introduced by the star of the Netflix series Sex Education, these anonymous sexual fantasies of women from around the world are diverse, engaging and erotic.

Penguin HB

$36.99

The Australian musician, composer, songwriter and comedian offers thoughts and advice about life, art, success, kindness, love and thriving within what can often seem a meaningless universe.

History AUSTRALIA IN 100 WORDS Amanda Laugesen

NewSouth PB

$32.99

This collection of specifically Australian words and phrases is about more than their various etymologies, fascinating though they are. It is also about specific cultural moments in our remote and recent past, and about our shifting national attitudes and identity. Amanda Laugesen, the chief editor of the Australian National Dictionary, uses forgotten and familiar words to reflect on what language can tell us about ourselves. These range from words that were taken from First Nations languages, to those that emerged from wars, to those that solidified after politicians’ soundbites. Laugesen assures us that Australians are still coming up with neologisms despite globalisation and social media. And while ‘drongo’ may no longer be in common usage, words such as ‘flog’ have entered our own highly distinctive lexicon.

Yale HB

$51.95

BENNELONG & PHILLIP Kate Fullagar

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Scribner PB

$34.99

Historian Kate Fullagar uses an unorthodox format in this book, telling the stories of her two fascinating subjects from finish to start. In the process, she delivers the first full biography of Bennelong, the leader of the Yiyura (Eora) people who was captured in November 1789 and brought to the settlement at Sydney Cove by order of Arthur Phillip, the colony’s first governor. Fullagar’s book challenges many misconceptions, chief among which are that Bennelong became alienated from his people, and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. She explores what Phillip’s life reveals about British imperial power, and what Bennelong’s actions reveal about the sophistication of his own society and his ongoing ties with it.

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THE FALL OF EGYPT AND THE RISE OF ROME Guy de la Bédoyère

NÄKU DHÄRUK: THE BARK PETITIONS Clare Wright

The latest book by historian, writer and broadcaster Guy de la Bédoyère charts the fascinating 300-year history of the Ptolemaic kings and queens in Egypt.

The first of this dynasty was Ptolemy I Soter, who was gifted Egypt in 305 BCE after the death of Alexander the Great during the creation of the so-called Hellenic Successor Kingdoms. Over the ensuing 300 years Ptolemy’s descendants became infamous for their custom of sibling marriage and their murderous internecine rivalries. Described by de la Bédoyère as ‘sometimes only at best sociopathic and at worst psychopathic’, the Ptolemys included many strong queens, most notably Cleopatra VII, whose son with Julius Caesar was the last of the dynasty to rule Egypt before Rome’s might prevailed.

Award-winning historian Clare Wright brings her Democracy trilogy (The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and You Daughters of Freedom) to a conclusion with this stirring investigation into the Yirrkala bark petitions and their ongoing legacy.

The Yolngu people of Yirrkala in North East Arnhem Land created the first of these unique documents in 1963 as a formal attempt to have their land rights recognised by the Australian parliament following the discovery of bauxite on traditional lands. Wright describes the flurry of creative activism that brought all four bark petitions into being, as well as the numerous attempts to dismiss their significance. With this third passionate, engaging and highly readable work, she again invites readers to reconsider the history they may think they already know.

Text PB

$45

THE GOLDEN ROAD William Dalrymple

Bloomsbury PB

$39.99

William Dalrymple has been living, breathing and writing about India for the past 40 years. In The Golden Road, the prize-winning historian examines the nation’s forgotten legacy as a superpower in the ancient world. From around 250 BCE to 1200 CE, he explains, India was at the heart of a ‘golden road’ of maritime trade routes that stretched from Alexandria to Guangzhou. This Indian sphere of influence transformed Asia with its transference of cultural gifts, with Sanskrit the lingua franca, Buddhism the religion and a numerical system that we still use today, including the all-important zero. With India now on the cusp of regaining superpowerdom, this masterful book questions our conceptions of cultural and historical legacies, and is a beautifully illustrated and hugely engrossing read.

PARIS IN RUINS Sebastian Smee

Text PB

$36.99

When Édouard Manet wrote to Berthe Morisot after the ‘Bloody Week’ of 1871 that saw the end of the Paris Commune, he said of the city that ‘it’s impossible to live elsewhere’. This was not true for many artists, especially after the great violence the city had been through. But Paris and Impressionism remain entwined in our consciousness. Sebastian Smee is an art critic (and Pulitzer Prize winner) but his latest book is as much about Paris as it is about Impressionism and Manet and Morisot themselves. Equally at home with military history, politics and the interpersonal as he is with art, Smee has been careful to take us through the various contexts that gave rise to what is arguably now the most recognised art movement in Western history.

BLACK CONVICTS: HOW SLAVERY MADE AUSTRALIA Santilla Chingaipe

MADRID: A NEW BIOGRAPHY Luke Stegemann

WARRA WARRA WAI Darren Rix & Craig Cormick

Filmmaker, author and ‘accidental’ historian Santilla Chingaipe draws from extensive research to tell the stories of convicts of African descent who were transported to the nation’s penal colonies between 1788 and 1850. In doing so, she offers a vital new understanding of one of the foundational myths of contemporary Australia. The lives of these convicts were fascinating and varied, filled with drama and frequently harrowing. And significantly, they have long been missing from the official narrative. Chingaipe seeks to counter this silencing by sharing them now and by situating them within their global context, demonstrating how closely tied the colonisation of Australia was with the slave trade.

Bursting with historical and cultural insightfulness and lyrical flair, Luke Stegemann’s Madrid is one of those wondrous city biographies that have you immediately investigating airfares and making travel plans. With a storyteller’s skill, Stegemann stretches back in history as far as the city’s Iron Age beginnings, covers successive Roman, Islamic and Christian occupations and moves on to the new era beginning in 1561 when Madrid became the country’s capital and its population exploded. Following its up-and-down fortunes, three-year civil war and 36 years of fascist rule, Madrid is now one of the world’s most visited and adored cities. This biography goes a long way to helping you understand why.

A collaboration between Darren Rix, a Gunditjmara-Gunaikurnai radio reporter and musician who has worked as a cultural sites officer, and Craig Cormick, a whitefella author and science communicator, this book follows the journey of Lieutenant James Cook up the east coast from the point of view of the First Nations people who first encountered him. It is a deeply researched history that honours First Peoples’ knowledge – Rix spoke with dozens of interviewees directly on their Country. The authors also delved deep into colonial archives, and the resulting book winds both forms of knowledge into a rich history and important contemporary truth-telling.

Yale HB

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Scribner PB

$34.99

Highly Recommended CRUSADER CRIMINALS Steve Tibble

HENRY V Dan Jones

THE LAST DYNASTY Toby Wilkinson

From gangsters and bandits to muggers and pirates, this book tells the extraordinary story of the illicit and violent underworld that thrived in the Holy Land during the Crusades.

The final volume in Jones’ trilogy of English medieval histories recounts the short but portentous life and reign of the victor of Agincourt.

An account of the Ptolemys, the last great dynasty of ancient Egypt, and their unique blend of Greek and Egyptian culture.

Yale HB

$51.95

Apollo PB

$34.99

CYPRIA Alex Christofi

$55

Philosopher Hanno Sauer traces humanity’s fundamental moral transformations from our earliest ancestors through to the present day and questions where the evolution of morality will take us next.

Black Inc PB

$27.99

$34.99

Atlantic PB

Bloomsbury PB

$34.99

A new book based on the world’s most popular history podcast.

Also available: THE REST IS HISTORY ($24.99)

Recounted in a mere 272 pages, this book relates the astonishing and entertaining story of one of the world’s most enduring civilisations and empires.

THIS EARTHLY GLOBE Andrea di Robilant

THE REST IS HISTORY RETURNS Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook

Profile HB

A deeply personal, lyrical history of the island of Cyprus from the era of goddesses and mythical beasts to the present day. $36.99

Bloomsbury PB

THE INVENTION OF GOOD AND EVIL Hanno Sauer

Bloomsbury PB

THE SHORTEST HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME Ross King

$34.99

The fascinating story of the 16th-century Venetian who wrote the three-volume Navigationi et Viaggi (Journeys and Navigations), now considered the first work of modern geography.

12

Allen Lane HB

$45

Politics, Philosophy & Cultural Studies AUTOCRACY, INC. Anne Applebaum

HOW TO BE QUEER Sarah Nooter

TABOO Hannah Ferguson

In her latest book, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum issues a stark warning that democracy in the 21st century is under threat.

The enemy, a core group of leaders from different sides of the political spectrum, are colluding in plain sight to undermine our democratic rights, using everything at their disposal including financial structures, military surveillance, propaganda and disinformation to create a global network of autocratic superpowers. Driven by the desire for power at any cost, these dictatorships work in symbiosis to crush dissent both at home and abroad. Clear and insightful, Applebaum’s dissection of these leaders, their governments, what their end game is and how democratic nations might stop them makes for highly illuminating if terrifying reading.

HOW TO GET OVER A BREAKUP Michael Fontaine

Hannah Ferguson is the co-founder and CEO of Cheek Media Co, a company that brings a feminist eye to Australian news commentary. This is her second book, and it is deeply personal. Ferguson begins by listing her opinions about 17 subjects often considered taboo. She then takes nine of these subjects, orders them into four categories and presents us with her own experiences and research around each.

Ferguson is unflinchingly honest, funny and considered when addressing subjects such as sex, body image, friendship, family and career. This is the book to gift to your girlfriends, your daughters and, most importantly, your sons.

Princeton HB

$29.99

Princeton HB

$29.99

A BETTER AUSTRALIA John Brumby, Scott Hamilton & Stuart Kells

MUP PB

$39.99

$34.99

Affirm PB

$34.99

7. Who lives in ‘Obama’s placid America’?

THE ULTIMATE HIDDEN TRUTH OF THE WORLD… David Graeber

MEAN STREAK Rick Morton

What does a ‘better’ Australia actually look like? Who gets to decide what this means? And how can we create policy to move towards this vision? This deeply considered work tackles these questions head-on by looking at past examples of successful policymaking within Australia in areas including gun control, superannuation and reproductive healthcare reform. Its close examination of the design and implementation of these policies encompasses insights from political insiders who worked behind the scenes (including Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull and Christine Milne) and considers the obstacles that had to be overcome along the way. The main message? Positive change is complex but possible.

4th Estate PB

$35.99

THE CHAIRMAN’S LOUNGE Joe Aston

Scribner PB

These titles are the most recent additions to the popular ‘Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers’ series published by Princeton University Press, which presents the timeless and timely ideas of thinkers from the ancient world in lively new translations.

There are 37 volumes to date featuring subjects as diverse as healthy living, wealth management, anger management, friendship and elections. How to Be Queer is a collection of ancient writings about desire, love and lust between men, between women and between humans and gods. How to Get Over a Breakup is a modern translation of the ancient Roman poet Ovid’s Remedies for Love – a witty and irreverent work about how to fall out of love.

Before COVID hit, both Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce were flying high, the darlings of customers, staff and investors. Then the pandemic arrived, and the company changed – workers were (illegally) made redundant, unethical flight credits were issued and run-down aircraft became the norm. All while executives were paid huge bonuses and Australian taxpayers funded billions of dollars in government subsidies. How did things go so badly wrong? And why were customers kept at the end of the queue?

In The Chairman’s Lounge journalist Joe Aston recounts how he investigated what was happening and, in a series of incendiary Australian Financial Review columns, revealed the dark truth of how and why Qantas trashed a once-beloved brand.

Scribe PB

$39.99

In his latest book, Walkley Award–winning journalist Rick Morton lays bare the shameful story of Robodebt – one of the most shocking, large-scale failures in Australian government history. Steering us through the whole sorry Robodebt journey, Morton profiles the protagonists, the bit players, the egos, the power plays, the victims and the activists, presenting an utterly compelling and totally horrifying story of how, over the course of four and a half years, Australia’s government turned on its most vulnerable citizens.

Essential background to what the Royal Commission’s report described as a ‘massive failure of public administration’ caused by ‘venality, incompetence and cowardice’.

Allen Lane PB

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Over a three-decade career, renowned American economic anthropologist, activist and author David Graeber wrote about the big issues of our time – inequality, debt, technology, the identity of ‘the West’, democracy, art, power, mutual aid and protest. This collection of his sharp and lively essays has been edited by his wife, artist and writer Nika Dubrovsky, and is introduced by writer and public intellectual Rebecca Solnit. Graeber, who died in 2020 and whose best-known work is Debt: The First 5,000 Years, dared to imagine a new understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future – one where our world is both different and better.

OPUS Gareth Gore

WORKING FOR THE BRAND Josh Bornstein

When financial journalist Gareth Gore was reporting on the collapse of Spain’s Banco Popular in 2017, aspects of the bank’s financial collapse didn’t seem to make sense. Gore dug deeper and discovered that a small group of the bank’s shareholders called the Syndicate, with affiliations to the Catholic organisation Opus Dei, had been syphoning off huge amounts of cash as part of an offshore money-laundering operation. In Opus, a down-the rabbit-hole financial thriller, Gore forensically pulls apart the sect-like operation of Opus Dei to reveal not only corruption on a global scale but also the organisation’s cruel recruitment program, self-flagellation and celibacy practices, grooming of minors, and close links to both right-wing organisations and political influence in Washington, D.C.

Written by Australian labour-relations lawyer and author Josh Bornstein, this title is a no-holds-barred must-read exposé of how big corporations manipulate and control employees through ruthless employment contracts and various other means that allow companies to potentially control many aspects of an employee’s life outside the workplace.

In nine scintillating chapters, Bornstein covers cancel culture, green-washing, the power of the brand and the effects of neoliberalism on today’s workplace. Citing examples such as Amazon’s notoriously harsh labour practices and Qantas’ massive job losses and outsourcing, Working for the Brand offers a timely examination of the duplicitousness and questionable behaviour of major corporations and their effect on our democracy.

Scribe PB

$36.99

Highly Recommended AI SNAKE OIL Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor

BEST AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL CARTOONS 2024 Russ Radcliffe (ed)

Princeton PB

$34.99

Two Princeton University computer scientists uncover rampant misleading claims about the capabilities of AI and describe the serious harms it is already causing.

ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE Thomas Mayo

$19.99

$34.99

$27.99

Drawing on his life lived with dogs, a philosopher explores how canines experience the world and how they can help we humans understand ourselves better.

This reading of history (particularly Europe in the 1920s and ’30s) sounds an alarm about the present. The historical parallels are clear to see – but are we turning a blind eye?

Black Inc PB

$26.99

Black Inc PB

QE96: MINORITY REPORT George Megalogenis

REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT Malcolm Gladwell

This updated and expanded edition of Kohler’s bestselling Quarterly Essay on Australia’s housing crisis tells the story of how the crisis developed and how we might get out of it.

Regular QE contributor George Megalogenis examines the shape of Australian politics now that the two-party system seems to be permanently broken.

Gladwell’s new work reframes the lessons of his influential book about how social dynamics can trigger rapid change, this time focusing on the dark side of contagious phenomena.

THE GREAT DIVIDE Alan Kohler

HG Explore PB

A leader of the Yes 23 campaign outlines how Australians can continue to support the fight for Indigenous recognition.

Published every year since 2003, this popular anthology profiles the year in politics as observed

by Australia’s funniest and most perceptive political cartoonists.

REPEAT: A WARNING FROM HISTORY Dennis Glover

Granta PB

Scribe PB $35

THE HAPPINESS OF DOGS Mark Rowlands

Abacus PB

QE PB

$29.99

$34.99

Science, Nature & Gardening

Thames & Hudson HB

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BIG GARDEN DESIGN Paul Bangay

THE NATURAL GARDENER Richard Unsworth & Nicholas Watt

THE TREE ATLAS Matthew Collins with Thomas Rutter

High-society landscape designer Paul Bangay worked with his regular collaborator, photographer Simon Griffiths, to produce this handsome coffee-table book. Profiling Bangay-designed gardens in Australia, New Zealand and France, Big Garden Design includes coastal gardens, vineyard gardens, cold-climate gardens and many other garden types. All but one are country gardens and what they all have in common is big acreage, big ambitions and (from the looks of things) even bigger budgets. Turning the 300+ pages here is sure to encourage passionate home gardeners to embark on their own projects, something that will be assisted by the plans and planting lists included for each garden profiled.

In the face of climate change and the decimation of native flora and fauna, planting with natives to create a more naturalistic and wildlife-attracting garden style has never been more timely.

In The Natural Gardener, landscape designer and writer Richard Unsworth takes us on a tour of 14 gardens he has created in the Sydney area. From a coastal garden in Pittwater to a rural Blue Mountains retreat, Unsworth’s designs showcase a controlled wildness, creating an informally landscaped garden setting.

Fully illustrated with a guide to rewilding, bush restoration and plant choices.

Keen to learn about the world’s most amazing trees, and where to find them?

Trusted travel publisher Lonely Planet can oblige. Covering trees in Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, this atlas showcases 50 trees that are both familiar and rare, all of which have a story to tell. Some are quirky (take a bow, Southern Africa’s quiver tree), some are associated with myths and legends (Yemen’s dragon’s blood tree) and many are majestic (California’s giant sequoia and Australia’s mountain ash). Many, sadly, are vulnerable or endangered.

Each tree is profiled in a multi-page spread with photographs, an illustration to assist in identifying the tree by its unique characteristics and a ‘How to See’ section with practical information.

Thames & Hudson HB

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$39.99

Subtitled ‘a history of birdwatching in 22 species’, this book by historian, writer and passionate birdwatcher Russell McGregor offers a fresh appreciation of birds and how watching them fulfils a human need to connect with nature. McGregor takes the reader on a series of excursions into birdwatching’s past, introducing an intriguing cast of characters, (avian as well as human), and also considers the pastime’s scientific and conservationist components. From evocatively named species such as the Rainbow Lorikeet and Superb Fairy-wren to the more-prosaically monikered Noisy Scrub-bird and Blue-faced Parrot-Finch, this collection of profiles is a paean to the beauty, melodic calls and graceful movement of these wonderful creatures.

Fern PB

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La Trobe PB

$36.99

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In his bestseller Sapiens, historian and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari used sweeping brushstrokes to paint a history of mankind. In Nexus, he does the same thing, only this time his focus is on information systems throughout history, and how they have changed both the planet and us. From the stories and mythologies that have bound us together, to the computer technology that runs our societies, Harari takes us into the age of artificial intelligence. He argues that while AI may create many potential benefits for humanity, the risks of handing over the reins to a technology that is in effect an alien intelligence that has the potential to act and think for itself, or even destroy us, are very real. Thoughtful, far-reaching and entertaining.

WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS? Zoe Kean

NewSouth PB

$32.99

8. What literary journal was launched in 1940?

LET’S TAX CARBON Ross Garnaut Few Australian economists have as much credibility as Ross Garnaut. A former senior government advisor, diplomat and bank chairman, he was also the lead author of a high-profile 2008 government review examining the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy.

In his latest book, Garnaut argues that Australia has the ability to become a full-employment, renewable-energy superpower, and that the first step to achieving this would be by taxing carbon. A levy on the big polluters, he says, will help fund Australia to become a carbon-free energy giant, lower the cost of living and assist the world to cut emissions. Starting with a critique of the Albanese government’s performance in this space, Garnaut delivers a considered and thought-provoking argument.

Lonely Planet HB

NEXUS Yuval Noah Harari

ENCHANTMENT BY BIRDS Russell McGregor

Scribe PB

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WONDERS IN THE DEEP Mensun Bound & Mark Frary

THE SERVICEBERRY Robin Wall Kimmerer

Allen Lane HB

$32.99

Readers may remember the previous book from this author, the bestselling Braiding Sweetgrass. A passionate argument that plants and animals are our oldest teachers, it posited that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. Now, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer, has released a follow-up volume, The Serviceberry, which offers an inspiring vision of how to reorient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity and community.

Can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Kimmerer believes that we can.

This is a book for readers curious about current understandings of evolution and evolutionary psychology. Zoe Kean has written a funny, self-deprecating and thorough deep-dive into recent research about some frankly fascinating questions.

Why do we age? Why do we sleep? Why do we have inner lives? If genes are selfish, why care for creatures with no genetic relationship with us? Kean speaks with scientists around the world, she dives with sea snakes, and she takes us to beaches of stranded whales and to meet troops of bonobos. The stories of research are told in context, looking at how historical, political and cultural frameworks have impacted scientists’ work. Kean’s book paints a compelling picture of contemporary scientific understandings of evolution and how it relates to our humanity.

Simon & Schuster HB

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The bottom of the ocean is littered with shipwrecks from across the ages, frozen in time in their watery graves, lying in wait to be rediscovered. In Wonders in the Deep, underwater archaeologist and bestselling author Mensun Bound teams up with writer and author Mark Frary to take us on a trip through maritime history stretching back as far as 3000 BCE. Told through a carefully curated selection of objects found on various shipwrecks from early antiquity to WW2, Bound and Frary’s endlessly fascinating book blends seafaring history and underwater scientific research to create a history of the world through these sunken treasures. Wonderfully written and illustrated throughout, the book takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic adventure through the shipwrecked world.

Highly Recommended THE BEST AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE WRITING 2024 Jackson Ryan & Carl Smith (eds)

FIRST KNOWLEDGES: HEALTH Shawana Andrews, Sandra Eades & Fiona Stanley

NewSouth PB

$32.99

The 14th edition of this annual anthology showcases riveting, entertaining, poignant and fascinating science stories from Australian writers, poets and scientists.

$24.99

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$29.99

THE GENETIC BOOK OF THE DEAD Richard Dawkins (illustrated by Jana Lenzová)

Doubleday HB

WAS $65 NOW $19.99

A professor of psychiatry at Stanford writes about sessions with his patients that happened in the span of just one hour and that illustrate the power of authentic human connection.

Hari interviews many of the world’s leading experts on attention in a quest to find out why we’re losing it and how we can get it back.

Bloomsbury PB

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THE BODY: ILLUSTRATED Bill Bryson Polymath Bill Bryson delivers an illustrated, comprehensive and compulsively readable head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body.

STOLEN FOCUS Johann Hari

Scribe PB

Thames & Hudson PB

The latest volume in the First Knowledges series highlights the role of Aboriginal people in decision-making about health care.

HOUR OF THE HEART Irvin D Yalom & Benjamin Yalom

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WILD SCIENCE Helen P Waudby (ed)

An Australian researcher who focuses on Indigenous knowledge systems writes about the gene that supercharged humans’ ability to learn and share knowledge with others.

Thought-provoking and often hilarious stories from the precarious global front line of ecology fieldwork.

CSIRO PB

Allen & Unwin PB

Apollo HB

Dawkins’ latest book shows how the body, behaviour and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors.

THE KNOWLEDGE GENE Lynne Kelly

$36.99

$36.99

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Art, Architecture & Design ABOUT FACE Amber Creswell Bell

Thames & Hudson HB

$69.99

They say eyes are the window to the soul, and what better way to dive into a nation’s artistic soul than via its contemporary portrait painting? In this book, Amber Creswell Bell does just that, interviewing 39 prominent portrait painters working in Australia and New Zealand. Each artist’s profile is replete with insights into their early life, working methods and what continues to draw them to this longstanding artistic tradition. With every portrait revealing more than meets the eye, About Face uncovers what we can learn about a nation’s dynamic cultural and social identity from the artists behind the canvas.

NewSouth PB

$59.99

Allen & Unwin PB

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Phaidon HB

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Bloomsbury HB

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NewSouth PB

$49.99

Miegunyah HB

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Thames & Hudson HB

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Phaidon

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Laura May Todd is based in the global design hub of Milan, where she writes for publications including Architectural Digest and Wallpaper* magazine, so she is well placed to take readers on this photographic tour of inspiring Italian homes. The interior design styles featured in this coffee-table book range from historic to contemporary and minimalist to maximalist but have one thing in common – they are all supremely elegant and distinctively Italian.

THE POETRY OF SPACES Sarah Andrews

Hardie Grant HB

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‘Marramarra’ is a Wurundjeri word meaning to create, make or do, and this book explores how contemporary First Nations artists and their communities are revealing hidden histories, finding pathways to healing and forging bright futures. Curated by artist and academic Brook Garru Andrew and art historian Jessica Neath, it includes conversations with leading contemporary artists including Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin (Pitjantjatjara, Arrernte, Australia), Judy Watson (Waanyi, Australia), Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe, Canada), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit and Unangax̂, Alaska) and Pauliina Feodoroff (Skolt Sámi, Finland).

Subtitled ‘Planet-friendly home design’, this volume celebrates 25 architect-designed houses around the globe whose designs employ one or more sustainable design features. Regular viewers of TV shows such as Grand Designs will be aware of the benefits of Passive House design, triple glazing, solar panels and green roofs, but few of us will be familiar with the benefits that techniques and materials such as geothermal heating, pile foundations and hempcrete can bestow. This photographrich book demystifies many such elements, proving that sustainability itself is, as author Penny Craswell says, an everexpanding and inspiring field.

Thames & Hudson HB

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The premise of this title is that the eighties were a time of bold exploration and bedazzling creativity. The proof for this assertion is supplied in the form of oodles of photographs – subjects range from the many world-changing technologies that emerged during this decade to the sometimes-unwise fashions (those shoulder pads! the explosive hairdos!). Also given their due are postmodern design, synthpop music, movies and sporting and fitness icons. Author Henry Carroll is himself a professional photographer and this selection of images is skilfully curated and hugely evocative of the time.

Australian designer Sarah Andrews believes that our homes should be ‘vessels that nurture how we want to live’ and The Poetry of Spaces is a compilation of interiors that Andrews believes have this nurturing quality. These spaces – all beautiful – are thoughtfully furnished and decorated, with well-loved objects, tactile materials, art, muted colours and adroit lighting being the hallmarks. Introductory chapters focus on the foundations of style (including use of light, furniture and materials) but most of this gorgeous book is dedicated to photographs of inspirational spaces around the globe.

65,000 YEARS: A SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN ART Marcia Langton & Judith Ryan (eds)

Thames & Hudson HB

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This important publication includes the voices of 25 leading thinkers, historians, curators and academics interrogating 65,000 years of First Peoples’ art across Australia. Covering a diverse range of artists, materials, time periods and language groups, it begins with a map detailing current Indigenous place names to initiate a reconsideration of Australia’s history of cultural production. Filled with comprehensive illustrations of works ranging from traditional bark paintings to Destiny Deacon’s prints, it reveals the brilliance of Indigenous art while raising important questions about the past and future of Australian culture.

THE STORY OF DRAWING Susan Owens

Yale HB

$51.95

THE 1980S Henry Carroll

GREAT WOMEN SCULPTORS Carving out a survey of over 300 trailblazing women sculptors, this is the third book in a series inspired by Linda Nochlin’s 1971 canonical essay ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’

From Tracey Emin to Yayoi Kusama, it celebrates the diversity of sculpture by dedicating each page to a different artist, their methods and personal histories. Embracing those who have been overlooked alongside those who were celebrated in their own time, each spread invites surprising juxtapositions to transcend frameworks that regularly constrict the recognition of women artists.

Based in Central Victoria, where she lives and works in an 1860s farmhouse surrounded by a notable garden, artist Criss Canning is known for her highly collectable still-life paintings, many of which feature flowers. Canning’s art is heavily influenced by the work of Vincent van Gogh and her paintings, like his, have a distinctly Japanesque flavour. This monograph features luxe production values and includes reproductions of more than 100 of Canning’s artworks as well as photographs of her enviable house, garden and collections.

THE NEW SUSTAINABLE HOUSE Penny Craswell

FRANCES BURKE Nanette Carter & Robyn Oswald-Jacobs Though Frances Burke’s name may not be familiar to all Australians, her distinctive and iconic fabric designs will be.

One of a select group of early-20th-century artists and designers who incorporated imagery of native flora and fauna as well as personal interpretations of Indigenous Australian and Pacific iconography into their work, Burke’s vibrant and modern designs were enthusiastically embraced by householders across the country (and still are). A covetable design object in its own right, this heavily illustrated book offers a fascinating insight into the life and work of this design pioneer and successful businesswoman.

The 1950s to 1970s was a time of great flux – social, political and cultural – and also a time when new technologies including Instamatic colour film, Polaroid cameras and television pushed the art of photography in a revolutionary new direction. Showcasing documentary photographs taken by Max Dupain, Carol Jerrems, William Yang, Rennie Ellis, David Moore, Mervyn Bishop, Sue Ford and others during this period, this book is a testament to a particularly exciting time for this Australian art form.

December release.

MARRAMARRA Brook Garru Andrew & Jessica Neath

CHANEL: COUTURE AND INDUSTRY Amy de la Haye French fashion designer Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was a pioneer in challenging society’s definition of what was feminine, designing for women’s comfort as well as for elegance. This book celebrates Chanel’s six-decade career, charting the development and rise of her fashion empire rather than dwelling on biographical details. Covering everything from her early experiments using knitted jersey as a fashion fabric (thank you, Coco) to her elegant perfumes (ditto) and the creation of the iconic Bouclé Jacket (if only…), this richly illustrated book is a splendid tribute to a fashion luminary.

THE PAINTINGS OF CRISS CANNING Criss Canning

ITALIAN INTERIORS: ROOMS WITH A VIEW Laura May Todd

AUSTRALIA AT THE MOVIES David Stratton While the internet is loaded with information about Australian movies, nothing can beat a nice thick belter of a book covering almost every feature film from the past 30 years of Aussie cinema. David Stratton is the obvious go-to film critic to compile said book and in Australia at the Movies his encyclopaedic knowledge and love of movies shines.

The 30 themed chapters here offer way more than a simple film reference guide.

In-depth, beautifully written and featuring an abundance of behind-the-scenes info, Stratton offers the reader a deep dive into the recent history of home-grown cinema.

IMAGINING A REAL AUSTRALIA Stephen Zagala

Taking the reader on a voyage from bustling Renaissance workshops to Louise Bourgeois’ studio and Andy Goldsworthy’s outdoor workings, Susan Owens looks over the shoulders of close to 100 artists who have used the intrinsically human activity of drawing to think, play, create and experiment throughout history.

Her book tackles the art of drawing with humour, wit and evocative storytelling by questioning what has changed and what has stayed the same for such a popular but undefinable medium.

THIS CREATIVE LIFE Robyn Lea

Thames & Hudson HB

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The resplendent images in this book showcase the homes of 21 fashion-world professionals living in Australia, the USA, Europe and the UK. Most of us don’t reside in spaces like this (Italian palaces and stately English country homes predominate), but this book allows us to wistfully imagine what life would be like if we did. The Italian entries are particularly stunning, with spreads on Renaissance palaces and a luxury lakeside getaway.

More modest – but equally alluring – apartments and houses in destinations including Paris and London also feature.

Food & Travel

Ebury HB

WAS $65 NOW $49.99

COMFORT Yotam Ottolenghi

GOOD COOKING EVERY DAY Julia Busuttil Nishimura

KITCHEN SENTIMENTAL Annie Smithers

It’s been six years since the publication of the global phenomenon that was SIMPLE, and four years since FLAVOUR, so Ottolenghi fans will be ecstatic that this follow-up volume has finally arrived.

Working with long-time collaborators Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley, the Israeli-British chef, restaurateur and author has compiled a volume of 100 recipes presented alongside stories of his childhood and home. Arguing that the definition of comfort food can vary wildly between individuals but has some commonalities (it is nurturing, convenient, nostalgic and indulgent), he and his team have put together a collection of global recipes that are comforting, delicious, sophisticated and bound to attain ‘favourite recipe’ status in very short order.

This is Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s fourth cookbook, and she remains faithful to the mantra introduced in her break-out volume, Ostro – namely, that the best food is simple, comforting and generous in spirit. She also believes that the best dishes are inspired by fresh seasonal produce. Good Cooking Every Day features seven sections populated by easy-to-execute recipes for snacks, tarts, breads, soups, pastas, rice dishes, substantial mains, salads, vegetables, baked goods and desserts. Fully illustrated and with a handy appendix of suggested menus, the book is a perfect gift for home chefs of every age and level of ability.

It’s also ample reinforcement – if any were necessary – that Busuttil Nishimura is among Australia’s best cookbook authors.

Over her four decades working as a chef in Melbourne and country Victoria, Annie Smithers has experienced radically different work environments and seen many changes in the ways Australians like to eat. In this memoir she recollects the significant kitchens in her life, paying tribute to mentors such as Stephanie Alexander and supplying favourite recipes (over 70 in total) from her repertoire.

Kitchen Sentimental is heartfelt and proffers sage advice on many subjects, not least being its author’s passionate belief that as well as being a force that can inspire and pull people together, food has the magical ability to nurture the souls who provide it.

Plum PB

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COOKING AT HOME David Chang & Priya Krishna

Clarkson Potter HB

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The subtitle of this book is ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes (and Love My Microwave)’, signalling to readers that it is a volume geared towards time-strapped home cooks who embrace flavour but are allergic to fuss. That said, Cooking at Home also contains ample advice and inspiration for foodophiles. Compiled by two wellknown American food personalities, it has an unorthodox format, devoting chapters to techniques, favoured ingredients and practical advice (including plenty of shortcuts) rather than solely focusing on curated selections of recipes. The authors’ message is as clear as it is compelling – namely, that the most enjoyable cooking is simple, relaxed and improvised.

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These fully illustrated titles from the doyenne of Australian cooking have been significantly discounted just in time for the gifting season. Inspired by two decades of work with her eponymous and much-admired Kitchen Garden Program, Stephanie has written Fresh to encourage cooks of every age and level of ability to use fresh vegetables and herbs as the star ingredients in their kitchen creations.

Recipes are simple and family friendly, grouped into chapters also featuring step-by-step guides to techniques. Home is geared towards more-experienced cooks, reflecting Stephanie’s food preferences and passions, and paying homage to her long and storied culinary journey.

Thames & Hudson PB

$34.99

KONBINI Brendan Liew & Caryn Ng

IN BELINDA’S KITCHEN & A YEAR OF SUNDAYS Belinda Jeffrey

Simon & Schuster HB

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Simon & Schuster HB

FRESH & HOME Stephanie Alexander

Macmillan PB

15

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Belinda Jeffery is unassuming when describing her recipes, which have appeared in Australian cooking magazine Delicious and been featured in her 10 bestselling cookbooks: ‘You certainly don’t need any great cooking skills for them, you just need to like food and like eating – just like me. The rest is simple.’ Simplicity is indeed key to her success, and the recipes in these two keenly priced titles prove the point.

In Belinda’s Kitchen is subtitled ‘Essential Recipes’ and features dishes that Jeffery is particularly fond of cooking, with a particular focus on vegetables, salads, desserts and cakes. A Year of Sundays is a mash-up of cookbook and journal, organised by month and stressing the importance of using fresh produce in season. Both offer ample inspiration for the home cook.

Smith Street HB

$49.99

9. Who battled Scylla?

A MATTER OF TASTE Lauren Samuelsson

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KARKALLA AT HOME Mindy Woods

Murdoch HB

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Macmillan HB

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First Nations chef and restaurateur Mindy Woods first came to prominence as a contestant in the fourth series of MasterChef Australia, before going on to set up her native ingredient–driven restaurant Karkalla in Byron Bay. In this, Woods’ first cookbook, she highlights over 40 native ingredients – including fruits, succulents, flowers, leaves, nuts and seeds – and shows how they can be added to enhance the flavours of a range of everyday home-cooked dishes. Cultural insights, followed by a comprehensive description of the native ingredients used, provide a helpful introduction before digging in.

Australians are holidaying in Japan in ever-increasing numbers and, when there, many find themselves intrigued and enchanted by the nation’s konbini (convenience stores). There are tens of thousands of these stores across the country selling inexpensive and tasty food – snacks such as onigiri (nori-wrapped rice balls); osouzai (prepared meals) of Japanese, Korean and Indian dishes; bentos filled with rice and okazu (side dishes); and bakery items such as sandwiches made with shokupan (slightly sweet fluffy bread).

Authored by chef Brendan Liew and his partner Caryn Ng, Konbini celebrates this Japanese phenomenon through photographs and plenty of recipes.

Monash PB

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The Australian Women’s Weekly has been a fixture in Australian households since 1933, with one of its major selling points being the cookery section. So popular was this part of the magazine that it spawned a series of companion cookbooks from 1955, most notably the beloved Birthday Cake Book. Recipes in the magazine and cookbooks played an enormously influential role in the development of our national food culture, with many Australians having their first encounters with global cuisines prompted by a recipe in the Weekly. Historian Lauren Samuelsson draws on recipes, food editorials and readers’ memories in this delightfully nostalgic book to show that the magazine, which she calls ‘the original Australian food influencer’, stimulated the eclectic and adventurous way of eating that characterises Australian contemporary food culture.

Highly Recommended THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE CHEESE Ellie & Sam Studd

THE ELEMENTS OF BAKING Katarina Cermelj

GARLIC, OLIVE OIL + EVERYTHING ELSE Daen Lia

The scions of a famous Australian cheesemongering family share expert tips on how to buy, store, pair and cook with cheese.

This science-based guide shows how to make delicious glutenfree, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan and GF vegan versions of classic baked treats.

Organised by ingredient, this illustrated ‘how to’ book includes dedicated chapters of Mediterranean recipes utilising garlic, olive oil, butter, bread, crumbs and eggs.

Plum HB

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Yellow Kite HB

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Hardie Grant HB

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$55

In his latest book, cult chef and regular traveller to Japan Tim Anderson (Tokyo Stories) concentrates on the distinctive cuisine of Japan’s northernmost island.

COOKING WITH FIRE Duncan Welgemoed

EPIC SALADS Jessica Prescott

HIDDEN LIBRARIES DC Helmuth

HOW THE WORLD EATS Julian Baggini

The founder of Adelaide’s Africola restaurant shares his techniques and recipes for great BBQs, showcasing salads and vegetables as well as fish and meat.

What makes a salad epic?

This book will convince you the answer lies in expertly balancing textures and flavours, creating a final product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Underground, mobile, on streets, in monasteries and even in outer space, this global celebration of little-known libraries is sure to delight and inspire bibliophiles.

Philosopher Julian Baggini advocates for a pluralistic, humane, resourceful and equitable global food philosophy on which we can build a food system fit for the future.

Affirm PB

$39.99

HOKKAIDO Tim Anderson

Lonely Planet HB

Hardie Grant HB

$49.99

$42.99

Granta PB

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Food & Travel NIGHTS OUT AT HOME Jay Rayner

Fig Tree HB

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As well as being The Observer newspaper’s long-standing food critic, Jay Rayner is a feature writer, novelist and raconteur.

He is renowned for his excoriating restaurant reviews (in his legendary review of the five-star restaurant at the Hôtel George V in Paris he describes a canapé featuring ‘blunt acidity of the sort that polishes up dulled brass coins’, a main of pigeon ‘served so pink it just might fly again given a few volts’ and a dessert featuring an ‘elastic flap of milk skin…like something that’s fallen off a burns victim’), but his positive reviews greatly outnumber these hatchet jobs. Rayner’s new book is an entertaining blend of reviews, personal stories and recipes and is sure to be a big hit with his ever-growing global readership.

Murdoch HB

$49.99

10. Who wrote Remedies for Love?

RECIPETIN EATS: TONIGHT Nagi Maehashi

Macmillan PB

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Nagi Maehashi is a social-media phenomenon, having millions of Facebook followers and hundreds of thousands of devotees on YouTube. She’s also no slouch when it comes to book publishing – her debut cookbook RecipeTin Eats: Dinner was the recipient of the Australian Book of the Year accolade in the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards and is now a global bestseller. Nagi’s new cookbook, Tonight, features 150 new recipes that collectively cater for every budget, taste and level of cooking expertise. Some dinners can be cooked in 20 minutes, others can be made using only pantry staples. All are sure to be delicious.

HarperCollins HB

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Murdoch HB

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USES FOR OBSESSION: A (CHEF’S) MEMOIR Ben Shewry

You probably know Matty Matheson from playing the handyman-turnedwaiter in the smash hit TV series The Bear. However, he also runs a swathe of restaurants in Toronto and has a couple of bestselling cookbooks to his credit.

In Soups, Salads, Sandwiches, this largerthan-life restaurateur, chef and actor pulls together a wild assortment of ingredients and flavours, highlighting the home-style recipes he comes back to time and time again. A tasty BLT or classic Reuben might sit alongside more adventurous offerings like a crispy lamb pho or Sichuan chilli oil smashed cucumber salad and soycured egg. Big flavours and hearty dishes dedicated to Matheson’s iconic trinity (ie soups, salads, sandwiches) abound, and food and family photographs and witty copy keep the reader entertained.

This memoir from a Melbourne-based chef and restaurateur is bound to set tongues wagging in the local and international restaurant sectors. Ben Shewry’s Melbourne restaurant Attica was once a regular inclusion in the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurant list, but its review stars have waned in recent years.

Shewry blames the food media for this (particularly, it would seem, critics at The Age newspaper), lambasting what he describes as ‘the sour impact food media has had on restaurants’ and describing most food critics as ‘arrogant’ figures who ‘can’t hack it in other forms of journalism’. Elsewhere he addresses issues including the cult of the celebrity chef, the precarity of the restaurant business and the shameful prevalence of sexual abuse and harassment in the restaurant industry.

Murdoch PB

$34.99

A THOUSAND FEASTS Nigel Slater

VEGAN ITALIAN FOOD Shannon Martinez

Renowned for his easy-to-cook comfortfood recipes, English food writer and broadcaster Nigel Slater has hundreds of newspaper columns and nearly 20 books under his belt. The most recent of these books sits comfortably next to his first, much-loved memoir, 2003’s Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger. A collection of stories and jottings about food and life generally, A Thousand Feasts focuses on what its author describes as ‘diminutive pleasures…that feed the soul and nourish the spirit’. Often funny, sometimes moving and always sharply observed, it celebrates what Slater calls ‘little joys illuminating an increasingly darkening world’.

The great thing about Italian food is that its vegan credentials are pretty strong before you need to veganise it.

Add Shannon Martinez’s genius at whipping up a variety of savoury and sweet vegan delights, not to mention vegan versions of salami, cheese and tiramisu, and you’re pretty much set.

Vegan Italian Food is a roll call of Italian veggie classics alongside lesser-known dishes and an assortment of vegan twists including fritto misto (replacing seafood with mushrooms and a clever kombu flavouring) and Bolognese with a vegan mince. Martinez’s freewheeling tone and the party-like photographs (fun is something her restaurant is known for) are balanced by the skills and cooking knowledge that have made her Melbourne’s favourite vegan chef.

Hardie Grant HB

WAS $45 NOW $39.99 $

TONY TAN’S ASIAN COOKING CLASS Tony Tan

SALAD FOR DAYS Alice Zaslavsky The new book by broadcaster and writer Alice Zaslavsky, author of the wildly successful In Praise of Veg, is another vegetable page-turner that proves once and for all that dishes plucked from the vegetable kingdom can be the star of the show. The book’s two main sections cover recipes for warmer and cooler months, with a strong focus on seasonal ingredients. The main recipe sections are sandwiched (at the front) between an invaluable essential tips and dressing guide and (at the back) a handy A–Z veg listing with quick-fire recipe index.

Big-flavour combos including charred and smashed zucchini with labneh and chilli oil, or carrot and wild rice salad with marmalade dressing, will ensure your salad days are definitely not behind you.

SOUPS, SALADS, SANDWICHES Matty Matheson

Murdoch HB

WAS $59.99 NOW $54.99 $

Known to Australian foodies through his delicious recipes in Gourmet Traveller magazine as well as the popular cooking school he operates in country Victoria, Malaysian-born chef Tony Tan is a passionate advocate for the cuisines of Asia. His latest book is as inspirational as it is practical, featuring recipes from Malaysia, China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and India. All dishes have been gorgeously photographed by Mark Roper and are easily mastered by enthusiastic home cooks. Organised into chapters on food types (noodles and rice, dumplings and buns, sweets) and by ingredient (meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables), the book also includes sections on Asian pantry staples, choosing and seasoning woks and mastering the art of stir-fry.

WHAT I ATE IN ONE YEAR Stanley Tucci

Fig Tree HB

WAS $45 NOW $34.99 $

Actor and passionate foodie Stanley Tucci describes this book as ‘a diary of food, family, friends, love, loss and digestive issues’. Its 12 months of daily entries record his meals in restaurants and kitchens, on film sets and press junkets, at home and abroad. These meals – some memorable, others inedible – are a prism through which Tucci reflects on the ways his life, his career and his family are constantly evolving. Sure to be a hit with all of us who adored accompanying Stanley on his food-focused television travels through Italy, What I Ate in One Year is a satisfying follow-up to his bestselling 2021 memoir Taste: My Life Through Food.

Highly Recommended LOVE CRUMBS Nadine Ingram

Simon & Schuster HB

$54.99

The baker-owner of Sydney’s celebrated Flour and Stone shares reliable and delicious recipes for 50 cakes made with botanicals, spices and fruits.

WAS $59.99 NOW $49.99

NOW & THEN Tessa Kiros

$

Published to complement Rick Stein’s new BBC food series, this cookbook focuses on British food, a cuisine that he thinks is now one of the most exciting in the world.

Australian pastrycook and former MasterChef contestant Emelia Jackson offers more than 80 recipes for classic bikkies, quirky cookies and other baked delights.

$39.99

$49.99

Broadsheet HB

WAS $54.99 NOW $24.99

YOUR ASIAN VEGGIE PATCH Connie Cao

Hardie Grant HB

$50

The new book from The Tivoli Road Baker team features sweet recipes ranging from classic cakes and biscuits to decadent tarts and puddings.

National online guide Broadsheet supplies a carefully curated overview of the most inspiring stays, swims, walks, dining, culture and experiences in Australian states and territories.

$

SWEET SEASONS Michael & Pippa James

Hardie Grant HB

An Australian-Lebanese mother and daughter share the secret to cooking and serving delicious Lebanese dishes and feasts.

TRAVELS

Murdoch PB

SOFRA: LEBANESE RECIPES TO SHARE Karima Hazim Chatila & Sivine Tabbouch

Murdoch HB

WAS $59.99 NOW $19.99

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE COOKIES Emelia Jackson

BBC HB

$

Part memoir, part travel guide and part cookbook, this beautifully designed and illustrated volume features over 150 globally inspired recipes.

RICK STEIN’S FOOD STORIES Rick Stein

Murdoch PB

$39.99

This practical and inspiring guide to growing and cooking with Asian vegetables, herbs and fruits showcases 50 edible plants and includes the same number of recipes.

Kids & YA

17

Landovel Emily Rodda The new novel by the inimitable Emily Rodda is a three-part fantasy adventure story set in a world that has undergone great turmoil and separated into two very different Allen & Unwin PB islands. The north, known WAS $39.99 as True Landovel, has NOW $32.99 shunned modernity and $ books are banned. Ruled by a king who doesn’t age and is rumoured to be in thrall to magical forces, True Landovel’s inhabitants believe in mythical ancients known as The El. On the southern island, known as Free Landovel, the people value wisdom and knowledge.

Derry is a young orphan boy on a boat of escapees from the north that has been captured by slave traders. He is taken to their island retreat, known as Cram’s Rock, and chosen as the leader’s poison taster. This privileged position allows him access to a marvellous library of books, which he reads whenever he can. Derry is eventually rescued from the Rock and chosen for a very important yet dangerous job that is vital to keep Free Landovel safe.

Rodda has never before released a series all at once so that readers can binge on the story in its entirety, but she was determined that this was how her Landovel trilogy should be published. Readers aged 8 and up will be captivated by the story of Derry and his crucial role in healing the schism in Landovel.

A national treasure who has been writing for children for 40 years, Rodda published her first book,

AFLOAT Kirli Saunders & Freya Blackwood

Little Hare HB

$24.99

Roam the water with me. / We are here to learn. So opens this poignant new picture book, which advocates for the honouring and teaching of First Nations wisdom in a time of climate change. As an Elder leads a child through the pages, the act of weaving is employed to demonstrate the coming together of community and creativity to generate positive change.

The poetic language from Gunai author and storyteller Kirli Saunders works with whimsical illustrations from Freya Blackwood to create something truly special. A conversation-starter for readers aged 4–8.

Nosy Crow HB

WAS $45 NOW $16.95 $

Walker PB

$16.99

Lothian HB

$24.99

Zeke, Daniel and Alicia have been made hall monitors by Principal Wombat, who assures them that this has nothing to do with the fact that they are monitor lizards. It’s an honour, so when Zeke loses his position after a confrontation with Pelicarnassus, a pompous giant pelican and the son of a major supervillain, it’s a blow. Things at home aren’t great, either, as Zeke’s mother is finding it difficult to cope. Can the lizards and their new friend, a blind but fearsome hawk called Miel, protect their school from Pelicarnassus’ latest dastardly plot?

This delightful tale from the wonderful Patrick Ness is full of laughs and good advice for readers aged 9+.

Allen & Unwin PB

$24.99

Will lives in a dome built over Canberra to protect the population from pollution and pandemics. He’s been having strange dreams since his uncle, a sleep researcher, died suddenly…in his sleep. Will and his best friend Ender begin to notice how much control the government exerts, just as Ender’s brilliant but unstable sister announces that one of her colleagues has disappeared. Together the three young people set out to answer some urgent – and dangerous – questions. A wonderful new speculative fiction from Obernewtyn’s Isobelle Carmody. 14+

Athenaeum HB

$24.99

Simon & Schuster PB

$24.99

Enter our Emily Rodda competition!

Do you have a favourite character in Landovel? If you do, email your name, age and the name of your favourite character in the book to competitions@readings.com.au to go into the draw for one prize of a pack of 25 middle-reader books.

Entries must be received by 5pm on Thursday 30 January 2025.

The winner’s name will be drawn at Readings head office at 5pm on Friday 7 February 2025. The winner has 14 days from the date of the notification being made to claim their prize; if unclaimed, a re-draw will take place at the same location on Monday 24 February 2025. Promoter: Readings, 3/119–123 Adderley Street, West Melbourne VIC 3003.

When Stephen finds an intergalactic doggy traveller left behind in his backyard, he invites the traveller to stay.

Disagreements arise over where the visitor is expected to sleep and eat, not to mention go to the bathroom!

Thankfully, compromises are reached allowing friendship to grow. Lucy Ruth Cummins’ vibrant chalk-and-ink illustrations enliven the pages while enhancing the humour and whimsy of the tale: the dalmartian’s face at his first taste of bacon is a standout. Complete with a heartfelt ending, this is a charming, funny read for kids aged 4 to 8.

DESIGN & BUILDING ON COUNTRY Alison Page, Paul Memmott (illustrated by Blak Douglas)

Thames & Hudson PB

$26.99

This beautiful book is a collaboration between anthropologist Paul Memmot, artist Blak Douglas and interior designer Alison Page, a descendant of the Walbanga and Wadi Wadi people of the Dharawal and Yuin Nations. The book begins by very clearly setting Aboriginal design in the context of kinship systems and relationship to Country. It goes on to explore a series of Aboriginal-designed objects, from shell pendants and string, to midden concrete and bark buckets.

Written in clear prose, the book is suitable for readers of any age.

EXTREME ANIMAL FACTS Jennifer Cossins

THE DAGGER AND THE FLAME Catherine Doyle Fans of the novels of Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros are sure to love this book.

In a fantastical city called Fantome, the supply and use of a commodity known as Shade is controlled by two enemy guilds – the Cloaks (thieves) and the Daggers (assassins). After the death of her mother at the hands of a Dagger, Seraphine Marchant seeks refuge with the Cloaks and vows to take revenge.

But this won’t be easy, as the leader of the Daggers has ordered one of his assassins, smoulderingly handsome Random, to kill her. When Seraphine and Random meet, sparks fly and the action gets both complicated and steamy. Catherine Doyle hits all of the romantasy high notes here, and readers will be pleased with the ending, which promises a sequel. 16+

and courageous. How fortunate we are to have this new story, one that continues Emily Rodda’s unparalleled tradition of captivating storytelling and that is sure to become a much-loved classic for children around the world.

DALMARTIAN Lucy Ruth Cummins

COMES THE NIGHT Isobelle Carmody

THE CHEEKY TODDLER ALPHABET Davina Bell & Jennifer Falkner Delightful illustrations and rhyming text are the hallmarks of this alphabet picture book featuring a mother and son.

Geared towards toddlers both cheeky (G for the glasses you pull off my face) and naughty (D is for dinner thrown onto the floor), its gentle lessons are delivered in easy-to-repeat and -remember couplets that will be perfect for bedtime reading.

Our favourite? T is for toys and for taking a Turn/ (I know it’s not easy! It takes time to learn). 0+

All of Rodda’s stories portray universal themes of friendship, adventure and mystery, and she creates unique worlds where being small or weak doesn’t make you any less a hero. Her stories never speak down to children, but treat them as smart, resourceful

CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY Patrick Ness (illustrated by Tim Miller)

AND EVERYTHING WILL BE GLAD TO SEE YOU Ella Risbridger (ed) illustrated by Anna Shepeta Poems, as this editor of this anthology states in her introduction, contain feelings that make us human, that help us to see the world like someone else sees it. The poems in this inspirational and empowering anthology have been written by women and by girls as young as five.

Intended to address the gender inequality in poetry anthologies, where male poets have historically predominated, it includes over 100 poems by new, littleknown and well-known poets. The latter selection includes work by Carol Ann Duffy, Christina Rossetti, Vita SackvilleWest, Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson and Alice Walker. 5+

Something Special, in 1984. That book won her the first of six Children’s Book Council of Australia awards for younger readers. She gained legions of fans with her Rowan of Rin and Deltora Quest fantasy series, which many grown adults remember with great affection and whose captivating worlds continue to enchant new generations of readers.

Rodda often writes a compelling hero’s journey and is also master of the storywithin-a-story technique, which she uses to great effect in books such as His Name Was Walter, and also within Landovel. Another recent novel, The Shop at Hoopers Bend, harks back to her earlier novels where magic can be found in seemingly everyday lives.

Lothian HB

$26.99

An overview of the record-holders of the animal kingdom – the biggest and smallest, the loudest and smelliest, the most numerous and the most endangered.

Did you know that the ostrich is the world’s largest bird? And that the smallest bird is the bee hummingbird, which weighs less than a five-cent coin?

That the Tasmanian devil holds the dubious honour of being the world’s stinkiest marsupial? And that there are thought to be up to 100,000 trillion ants in the world? You will after reading this beautifully illustrated book! 7+

18

Walker PB

$17.99

NLA PB

$29.99

Kids & YA THE FAIRY TALE FAN CLUB Richard Ayoade (illustrated by David Roberts)

HOVER CAR RACER Matthew Reilly (illustrated by John Hanna)

Comedian Richard Ayoade’s hilarious collection features narrator C.C. Cecily, Senior Secretary of the Fairy Tale Fan Club, who handles the correspondence of all the stars and villains of fairy tales – Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, even the Big Bad Wolf. Cecily has compiled some riveting questions children have asked about their lives, along with the fairy tale legends’ surprising responses. Exquisitely illustrated by David Roberts, these laughout-loud stories are a refreshing take on fairy tales and will be loved by readers aged 7 to 70.

Originally released as a free fortnightly online serial, Hover Car Racer was published as a book in 2004 but this is the first graphic version to be released.

Aimed at a teenage readership, it’s an exhilarating mix of the science fiction, sport and thriller genres. Main character Jason Chaser is a hover-car racer who has won himself a place at the International Race School, where racers either make it onto the Pro Circuit or crash and burn.

Jason is an outsider – he’s younger than the other racers, and his car, the Argonaut, is older than theirs. Will he make it to the Pros despite this? 12+

Macmillan PB

$24.99

FLORA: AUSTRALIA’S MOST CURIOUS PLANTS Tania McCartney

HOW WE SHARE CAKE Kim Hyo-eun (translated by Deborah Smith)

Celebrating the incredible resilience and unique beauty of our native plant life, this book is packed with information and meticulously detailed illustrations, diagrams and maps. It’s bound to keep curious kids busy over the holidays as they delve into strange landscapes and the history of emblems, and also explore the deadly and sci-fi. As with her earlier title, Fauna: Australia’s Most Curious Creatures, Tania McCartney renders hard science not only accessible to young people, but wildly entertaining as well. 7+

Korean writer and illustrator Kim Hyo-eun grew up in a large family, so this delightful story about three sisters and two brothers who share food, clothes, baths and toys comes from both experience and the heart. Everything in this fictional family’s home must be carefully calculated and precisely measured to make sure no-one misses out, and this can sometimes be difficult. Capturing the very essence of family dynamics, How We Share Cake makes the point that it can be hard to share some things, but that sharing empathy and love is easy. 3+

Scribble HB

WAS $27.99 NOW $22.99 $

THE GLASS HORSE OF VENICE Arnold Zable (illustrated by Anita Lester) Text HB

$27.99

Every morning, Claudia stops at the glassblower’s workshop on her way to school to admire its windows full of glass animals. One day, the glassblower gifts Claudia a horse with broken wings, which accompanies her to a new town far away after an acqua alta destroys their Venetian home. Then something magical happens, giving Claudia hope that one day, she will be able to return to her beloved Venice.

Anita Lester’s luminous illustrations compliment Arnold Zable’s fairy-talelike narrative in a book that will delight imaginative readers aged 4+.

Walker HB

$39.99

Allen & Unwin HB

WAS $35 NOW $29.99 $

Barking Gecko HB

$24.99

$24.99

After travelling to Antarctica many times, Alison Lester and Coral Tulloch decided to celebrate the icy continent in a book. The two share stories of their travels along with their reflections on this unique place in the hope that this will inspire readers to learn more about Antarctica and advocate for its protection.

Full of photographs and illustrations, Into the Ice offers plenty of information and inspiration for readers interested in the natural environment, animals and the history of Antarctic exploration. 8+

Pan PB

$16.99

Zee’s parents send her to a holiday camp in the hope that she will make some new friends, and somewhat to her surprise, she does: Tifanee, a social-media influencer, and twin brothers Jonah and Moses. Soon, the four new friends find themselves in the middle of a hair-raising mystery that leads them to the House on the Hill, home to Old Bat Viv, a recluse who ‘has a reputation to rival Dracula’s’.

Will they survive the encounter and solve the mystery? And might they make another friend in the process? This novel from the author of Exit Through the Gift Shop is a total hoot, and will be adored by readers aged 10+.

Lonely Planet Kids HB

$32.99

Puffin HB

$19.99

Another engaging title from Lonely Planet’s kids imprint, Mysterious World is a richly illustrated reference book bursting with weird and wonderful stories about aliens and UFOs, strange structures, legendary monsters, bizarre disappearances, ghostly hauntings and much more. Organised by continent, it demystifies plenty of puzzling phenomena. From Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster, the Bermuda Triangle to the mythical cities of Atlantis and El Dorado, it debunks myths and legends, shares scientific facts aplenty and is sure to keep readers aged 8+ engrossed.

OFF TO THE NURSERY Alice Oehr

Scribble HB

$24.99

This colourful picture book about a trip to the plant nursery provides a delightful first lesson in gardening. The child narrator meets various staff at the nursery who make recommendations of plants and tips for growing. Seeds, worms and compost are presented as helpers for the garden and there is a wealth of pictorial information about growing herbs, fruit and vegetables, and native plants.

This is a stunning visual introduction to gardening that will inspire children to spend more time outdoors. 4+

THE 113TH ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN Stuart Wilson

Puffin HB

$19.99

We all know how magical books and reading can be, but the books in the Blackmoor-upon-Wyvern Public Library are more magical than most.

Much more magical. When 13-yearold Oliver Wormwood starts an apprenticeship at the library he soon realises that strange events are the rule rather than the exception at his workplace. Soon, he finds himself embroiled in a situation that will call for ingenuity and courage if he and the library are to survive. Fortunately, his new friends Agatha, Ember and the library cats are there to help. 10+

OUR GALAXY Sue Lowell Gallion (illustrated by Lisk Feng) Cleverly designed to open as a freestanding galactic globe, this guide to the solar system introduces aspiring astronomers and astronauts to rockets, planets, asteroids, stars, moons and galaxies.

Younger readers are invited to explore space for the first time through rhyming verse and striking illustrations; secondary text offers more detailed information and facts for older children. 2+

MEERKAT MAYHEM Mem Fox & Judy Horacek A mischievous meerkat gets stuck in its burrow after overeating and needs a variety of animals of the jungle to help it get out.

Elephant, giraffe and zebra aren’t strong enough to do the job. What combination of animals will it take to release that potbellied meerkat, who has snappy one-liners at the ready? Reminiscent of Winnie-thePooh’s tight spot after overeating honey and of Pamela Allen’s Who Sank the Boat?, this bright and cheeky picture book by two masters of the genre is sure to be a hit with toddlers ages 2+.

Young readers who have followed the exploits of Stella Montgomery (Witheringby-Sea) will be thrilled to learn that Judith Rossell now invites them to meet a daring new heroine. After failing to be quiet and obedient, Maggie Fishbone is sent to the Midwatch Institute for Orphans, Runaways and Unwanted Girls, where she is tossed head-first into a wild, magical and possibly deadly adventure. Adorned with detailed illustrations and snippets from a handy book entitled ‘Useful Things Every Girl Should Know’, The Midwatch is a page-turner for ages 8 to 12.

MYSTERIOUS WORLD Laura Knowles

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST ENDING Maryam Master (illustrated by Astred Hicks)

HOUSE Dan Giovannoni & Charlotte Lane A house abandons its foundations and launches into the sky in search of a friend. When it spots a like-minded soul, it whisks the lonely little girl inside its walls, where she roams through a fantastical series of rooms. Children will pore over Charlotte Lane’s highly detailed illustrations, which reveal the surprising things to be found in them: higgledypiggledy staircases, hovering cushions, snuggly blanket tents, and more. Dan Giovannoni presents a winsome, magical tale with a reassuring sentiment at its heart: storms always pass. For ages 4 to 8.

Hardie Grant Children’s HB

INTO THE ICE Alison Lester & Coral Tulloch

GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES Sandra Dieckmann A new edition of Grimm’s classic fairy tales is always welcome, particularly when it is as beautifully illustrated as this one. Acclaimed author-illustrator Sandra Dieckmann (Leaf and Waiting for Wolf) has selected favourites such as Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Puss in Boots for this anthology, as well as lesser-known fairy tales such as Sweet Porridge, The Star Talers, and Jorinda and Joringel. Born in the north of Germany, in a house surrounded by woods, Dickmann grew up reading classic editions of these German stories, and her book stays faithful to those time-tested versions. 4+

THE MIDWATCH Judith Rossell

Phaidon HB

WAS $24.95 NOW $20.99 $

Kids & YA

Lothian HB

$24.99

OVER OR UNDER? Pip Harry & Hilary Jean Tapper

TO STIR WITH LOVE Kate Mildenhall & Jess Racklyeft

Maisie is at the beach with her dad, who is teaching her to swim in the surf.

He says that waves are ‘like a kiss from the wind, blown from the middle of the ocean’, but Maisie thinks they’re a bit scary, especially after she gets dumped.

But then her dad explains that the trick is to decide whether to dive under or go over as the wave breaks, and soon Maisie starts to feel confident in the water.

A perfect read for little ones heading to the beach this summer. 2+

A little girl spends Mondays with her Grandma. Sometimes they bake a golden and scrumpti-licious cake together, the recipe for which has been handed down through the generations.

The process can be messy, but as Grandma says, ‘making magic means making a mess’. Most important of all is how they stir the cake – ‘once, twice, three times with love’. Kate Mildenhall’s tender story is perfectly matched by Jess Racklyeft’s pastel-toned illustrations, delivering a heartwarming story celebrating the magic of food and family. 2+

Simon & Schuster HB

$24.99

PARTY RHYME! Antonia Pesenti

Scribble Board

$19.99

Birthday balloons or birthday baboons?

Musical chairs or musical bears? Fairy bread (yum!) or hairy bread (yuck!).

This rhyming board book with its vivid illustrations and clever puns focuses on the familiar and much-loved elements of a birthday party and is sure to supply toddlers with hours of flip-the-flap fun.

A worthy successor to Pesenti’s hugely popular Rhyme Cordial and Rhyme Hungry. 1+

WHEN THE WORLD TIPS OVER Jandy Nelson

Walker PB

$22.99

ROBIN HOOD AGED 10¾ Ben Miller (illustrated by Elisa Paganelli)

Simon & Schuster PB

$17.99

After delighting middle readers with his reworking of the Merlin the Magician tale in Once Upon a Legend, Ben Miller now delivers an exciting adventure based on the story of Robin Hood.

When Charlie starts at a new school, she fears that making friends might be difficult. But very soon, she bands with a talking raven and two schoolmates, Nathan and Aruna, to venture into an alternate world accessed through the school library. While there, Charlie must use her wits, courage and newfound skill as an archer to foil a dastardly plot concocted by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (aka deputy headmaster Mr Thorne). 9+

Chronicle HB

WAS $24.99 NOW $19.99 $

ILF Board

$14.99

Thames & Hudson HB

$26.99

ADVENTURES UNLIMITED: THE LAND OF LOST THINGS Andy Griffiths (illustrated by Bill Hope) Pan PB $16.99

This delightful bilingual First Nations board book tells a simple story whilst teaching words in Wirangu language for common native Australian animals.

It features a kangaroo (marlu) asking the other animals, including an emu (garliya), wombat (wardu) and eagle (waldya), if they have seen her joey (minya marlu). There is a gentle rhythm of repetition that will delight even the youngest child. Created by an 18-yearold Wirangu woman to help people learn traditional language, this charming story also supports the work of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. 1+

Midnight Sun HB

$29.99

Willow loves her gumboots – they are perfect for splashing, crunching, and even dancing at parties. Then one of them gets a hole. Willow is devastated until she has a truly ingenious idea: why not turn the boots into a home for plants? Willow’s Gumboots is a bright, hopeful picture book softly illuminated with elegant illustrations from French-Australian artist Hélène Magisson. Its information about upcycling and instructions for DIY gumboot plant pots will be of interest to parents looking for holiday activities.

Ideal for creative kids aged 3+.

Hardie Grant Board $19.99

Phaidon HB

WAS $49.95 NOW $44.99 $

Rhyming, alliterative and onomatopoeic words and text (‘rustling ridges’, ‘whooshing wind’) will make this picture book about the sounds of the sand dunes a read-aloud favourite. 1+

THE DICTIONARY STORY Oliver Jeffers & Sam Winston Walker HB

$24.99

This new picture book by the duo behind A Child of Books features a dictionary that is bored and wants to tell a story rather than going through the alphabet. 3+

GEORGE THE WIZARD Tony Armstrong (illustrated by Emma Sjaan Beukers) Lothian HB $24.99

A story about friendship and letting others see your true colours. 4+

THE SWEETNESS BETWEEN US Sarah Winifred Searle Allen & Unwin PB

$22.99

Described by its publisher as Heartstopper meets vampires, this fantasy-romance graphic novel is about two very different teens forming a fast friendship against the odds. 12+

TURTLE MOON Hannah Gold (illustrated by Levi Pinfold) HarperCollins PB

$17.99

In this exciting eco-adventure set in Costa Rica, Silver and her new friend Rafi track down and return the stolen eggs of a leatherback sea turtle. 8+

WE DO NOT WELCOME OUR TEN-YEAR-OLD OVERLORD Garth Nix Allen & Unwin PB

$17.99

A WORLD OF FLAVOUR Gabrielle Langholtz (illustrated by Tània García) Do you know what pil pili and plov are?

Does Egypt’s kahk taste better than it sounds? And where the heck are zupa ogórkowa and borani chocondar eaten?

This celebration of food and recipes from around the globe highlights the many wonderful ways that cultures and cuisines are unique, but also hints at how much we all have in common. Organised by continent, country and sometimes food type, each of the 40+ entries has one spread of interesting facts and another featuring a recipe geared towards less-experienced cooks. 6+

The latest book by national treasure Andy Griffiths is another romp through imaginary lands and zany adventures. 7+

AMID THE SAND DUNES Andrea Rowe & Hannah Sommerville

WILLOW’S GUMBOOTS Beverley McWilliams & Hélène Magisson

THE TINY GARDENERS Kat Macleod Author-illustrator Kat Macleod presents a delightfully different perspective on the productive garden, depicting plants and flowers from the ground up as experienced by a team of tiny gardeners who turn and mulch the soil, scatter and plant seeds, prune, weed and harvest.

The bright, cutout-style illustrations evoke the many joys that gardens offer using the tools of the five senses – it’s a celebration of the smell of rich-scented roses; the distinctive sound of humming, hovering bees; the bright green colour of long, bumpy beans; the sweet taste of tropical mangoes; the touch of rough, pebbly mint leaves, and much more. 1+

Highly Recommended

WHERE’S MY MINYA MARLU? Mia Speed

STELLA & MARIGOLD Annie Barrows & Sophie Blackall This creative new collaboration from the duo behind the popular Ivy + Bean series is brimming with joy. Four-year-old Marigold and her seven-year-old sister Stella both have big imaginations that prove indispensable as they navigate childhood scrapes such as getting lost at the zoo, unravelling tricky friendship troubles, or braving a rainstorm. While this book is ideal for independent readers aged 6–9, its bright humour, sympathetic family dynamics and gorgeous full-colour illustrations also make it a perfect readaloud with younger children ready for longer stories.

Jandy Nelson’s two previous YA novels (The Sky is Everywhere and I’ll Give You the Sun) were international bestsellers and there is little doubt that When the World Tips Over will follow suit.

A multi-generational story set largely in Californian wine country, it centres on three siblings – Dizzy, Miles and Wynton – as well as Cassidy, a character who may or may not be an angel. The book’s themes are those Nelson fans will immediately recognise – the search for identity, the danger of secrets and the power of love – woven into a gripping, lyrically written story that cleverly incorporates elements of magical realism. 14+

19

After his younger sister finds an enigmatic globe that gives her astonishing powers, Kim must not only save his sister from herself – he must also save the world from his sister! 9+

WHITE NOISE Raelke Grimmer UWA PB

$26.99

Tackling sensitive topics with skill and empathy, this novel set in Darwin prompts the reader to gain an appreciation of how individuals can experience both grief and autism differently. 13+

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Price $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

*Flat rate Australia-wide; free postage for orders over $100. Express and overseas rates available on request.

Subtotal $ Plus delivery $9* Total $

Competition Entry Your chance to win a $1000 gift voucher!

To win a $1000 gift voucher: • Pay close attention as you read the reviews in this guide • Answer the questions scattered throughout the guide • Fill in the form below with your answers • Attach the form to a receipt from the purchase of an item from this guide (NB: your purchase must be from one of our shops) • Return to one of our shops by 5pm on Thursday 30 January 2025 I’d like to enter the competition. My answers are: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Entries are accepted from Sunday 10 November 2024 and must be received by 5pm on Thursday 30 January 2025.

The prize will be drawn at Gleebooks at 5pm on Friday 7 February 2025. The winner will be notified by email or telephone and posted on the Gleebooks website. Employees of participating bookshops are not permitted to enter the competition. The winner has 14 days from the date of the notification being made to claim their prize; if unclaimed, a re-draw will take place at the same location on Monday 24 February 2025. Gift voucher valid at the store where the receipt was issued. Promoter: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037. Tel: (02) 9660 2333.

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PROJECT MANAGER: Virginia Maxwell REVIEWS: Janet Austin, Bronte Coates, Angela Crocombe, Rose Gertsakis, Chris Gordon, Lorien Kaye, David McClymont, Virginia Maxwell, Joe Murray, Sonia Nair, Joe Rubbo, Ailsa Wild EDITOR: Virginia Maxwell PROOFREADER: Janet Austin COVER ILLUSTRATOR: Ilya Milstein DESIGNER: TRiC PRINTER: IVE Group