2025 Book Club Reading Guide

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BOOK CLUB

AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION BUNDLE! The Australian crime genre offers a fascinating mix of hard-hitting thrillers, gritty noirs and intricate mysteries, often set against the stark and sometimes oppressive landscapes of the country. Australian crime writers excel at blending suspense with rich, atmospheric settings and exploring complex, morally ambiguous characters.

This bundle offers a well-rounded experience for your book club, combining high tension, gripping plots, and deep dives into Australian culture and landscapes.

This set contains four (4) copies of each book: Out in Nowhere by Fleur McDonald Red River Road by Anna Downes The Valley by Chris Hammer

A FAREWELL TO ARMS | Ernest Hemingway In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experiences came 'A Farewell to Arms'. Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer and the men and women he meets in Italy with total conviction.

But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war. In it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.

THE AFTERLIFE CONFESSIONAL | Bill Edgar The Afterlife Confessional follows Bill's journey for answers as he looks through the dizzying kaleidoscope of his clients' lives - the widower who escaped an aged-care trap to take her husband's ashes on the road trip of a lifetime; the man who spent his life paying it forward to try to make up for one shameful act; the closet dominatrix who quietly confronts her husband's infidelity by comforting those truly in need; the devoted couple who insist on going hand-in-hand into the afterlife.

Staff Recommendation A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW | Amor Towles On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.

Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES | Kate Grenville What if Elizabeth Macarthur - wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydney - had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? That’s the starting point for A Room Made of Leaves, a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented

A THEATRE FOR DREAMERS | Polly Samson Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It's the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra where she is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever.

AFTER THE FLOOD | Kassandra Montag A little more than a century from now, our world has been utterly transformed. After years of rising floodwaters, all that's left is an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. Civilization as it once was is gone.

Bands of pirates roam the waters, in search of goods and women to breed. Some join together to create a new kind of society, while others sail alone, barely surviving.

AMERICAN DIRT | Jeanine Cummins Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?

ANOTHER WOMAN'S CHILD | Kerry Fisher Jo had thought that her life – and her heart – was full. With a busy job, a husband and a teenage daughter who is going off the rails, keeping her life running smoothly had already felt hard enough. But now Jo sits at the funeral of her best friend, Ginny, crushed by the loss of a friendship that had endured for 30 years: from college and their first days at work through to settling down and raising their own children. Against her husband’s wishes, Jo has made a life-changing decision: to take in Ginny’s teenage son, Victor, and raise him as her own. Despite her misgivings, Jo feels she had no choice: Ginny was a single parent, and Victor had no other family who could take care of him. But Victor’s arrival is about to break open the fragile cracks that were already forming on the surface of Jo’s family life and in her small rural community ... and expose a secret that has remained hidden for many years, with devastating consequences.

ANY ORDINARY DAY | Leigh Sales As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories - and a terrifying brush with her own mortality - sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

BILA YARRUDHANGGALANGDHURAY | Anita Heiss The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai. When she meets Wiradyuri stockman Yindyamarra, Wagadhaany’s heart slowly begins to heal. But still, she dreams of a better life, away from the degradation of being owned. She longs to set out along the river of her ancestors, in search of lost family and country. Can she find the courage to defy the White man’s law? And if she does, will it bring hope ... or heartache?

BIRDSONG | Sebastian Faulks n the heat of the French summer, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford travels to France and falls in love with his host's wife, Isabelle Azaire. When the world stops, their affair falters, and Stephen signs up. In a maze of tunnels under the trenches, Stephen finds the courage this war demands from the men in his command. And it is here that he will fight for everything he has ever known and loved.

A contemporary classic, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world. It is an epic story of passion, survival and redemption from a master storyteller.

THE BOOK OF RACHAEL | Leslie Cannold Did Jesus of Nazareth have a sister? We will never know- at that time in Jewish history, such a woman did not merit a place in any written record. The Book of Rachael is the story of a fiercely intelligent child consigned by her sex to a life of ignorance and drudgery. But Rachael fights her destiny, secretly learning the forbidden skills of literacy from her father Yosef and her brother. And when she falls in love with her brother's closest friend, Judah of Iscariot, it even seems that Rachael will find happiness in her constrained world. Then a message comes from Rachel's brother. He is on his way to Jerusalem for Passover. He plans to speak out in the Temple against the corrupt establishment, and he asks for Judah's help. And so begins the chain of tragic events that will change not just Rachael's life, but the world - forever.

BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE | Trent Dalton Life is pretty tough right now for twelve-year-old Eli – what with his mute brother, a convicted murderer for a babysitter, a drug-dealing stepfather, an incarcerated mother and a long-lost father – surely it can’t get any worse?

CLARKE | Holly Throsby On a hot morning in 1991 in the regional town of Clarke, Barney Clarke (no relation) is woken by the unexpected arrival of many policemen: they are going to search his backyard for the body of a missing woman. Next door, Leonie Wallace and little Joe watch the police cars through their kitchen window. Leonie has been waiting for this day for six years. She is certain that her friend - Ginny Lawson - is buried in that backyard under a slab of suspicious concrete. But the fate of Ginny Lawson is not the only mystery in Clarke. Barney lives alone in a rented house with a ring on his finger, but where is Barney's wife? Leonie lives with fouryear-old Joe, but where is Joe's mother? Clarke is a story of family and violence, of identity and longing, of unlikely connections and the comedy of everyday life. At its centre stands Leonie Wallace, a travel agent who has never travelled, a warm woman full of love and hope and grief, who must steer Joe safely through a very strange time indeed.

CLOUD CUCKOO LAND | Anthony Doerr Bound together by a single ancient text, the unforgettable characters of Cloud Cuckoo Land are dreamers and outsiders figuring out the world around them: thirteen-year-old Anna and Omeir, an orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy, on opposite sides of the formidable city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in an attack on a public library in present-day Idaho; and Konstance, decades from now, who turns to the oldest stories to guide her community in peril.

THE CONFESSION | Jo Spain The moment that the murderer turns himself in to the police when he could have easily escaped detection, The Confession announces itself as an exceptional murder mystery, full of the unexpected to the very last page. From the mystifying confession to the clever jig-saw puzzle of half-truths and red herrings and a superb cast of deeply interesting characters, Jo Spain has written a psychological thriller that is both inventive and utterly addictive. The truth lies buried somewhere in the past and as the characters settle down to tell their stories, secrets surface.

THE COUNTESS OF KIRRIBILLI | Joyce Morgan Elizabeth von Arnim was a bestselling novelist likened to Jane Austen for her witty and observational style. After one of her books had a cameo on Downton Abbey, she was rediscovered as 'the forgotten feminist who is flowering again'. She may have been born on the shores of Sydney Harbour as the daughter of a shipping merchant, but after young Elizabeth travelled from Sydney to London in 1869 she discovered society and society discovered her. She made her court debut before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and was pursued by the Prussian count Henning August von Armnin-Shlagenthin, whom she married even though she was full of doubt. The very formal world of European aristocracy became her life and the subject for her early novels that soon turned her into a literary sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. Elizabeth von Armin was an extraordinary woman who lived an exceptional life during exciting, glamorous and changing times that spans a shifting world that started with the innocence of Victorian Sydney and finished with the march of Hitler through Europe.

THE CURFEW | T. M. Logan Andy and Laura are good parents. They tell their son Connor that he can go out with friends to celebrate completing his exams, but he must be home by midnight.

When Connor misses his curfew, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of five families forever. Because five teenagers went into the woods that night, but only four came out. And telling the truth might mean losing everything...

CUTTER'S END | Margaret Hickey New Year’s Eve, 1989. Eighteen-year-old Ingrid Mathers is hitchhiking her way to Alice Springs. Bored, hungover and separated from her friend Joanne, she accepts a lift to the remote town of Cutters End. July 2021. Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti is seconded to a recently reopened case, one in which he has a personal connection. Three decades ago, a burnt and broken body was discovered in scrub off the Stuart Highway, 300km south of Cutters End. Though ultimately ruled an accidental death, many people including a high-profile celebrity - are convinced it was murder. When Mark’s interviews with the witnesses in the old case files go nowhere, he has no choice but to make the long journey up the highway to Cutters End. And with the help of local Senior Constable Jagdeep Kaur, he soon learns that this death isn’t the only unsolved case that hangs over the town.

DARK MODE | Ashley Kalagian Blunt Once you’re online, there’s nowhere to hide. Is it paranoia – or is someone watching? For years, Reagan Carsen has kept her life offline. No socials. No internet presence. No photos. Safe. Until the day she stumbles on a shocking murder in a Sydney laneway. The victim looks just like her. Coincidence? As more murders shake the city and she’s increasingly drawn out from hiding, Reagan is forced to confront her greatest fear. She’s been found. A riveting psychological thriller drawn from true events, Dark Mode delves into the terrifying reality of the dark web, and the price we pay for surrendering our privacy one click at a time.

DEMON COPPERFIELD | Barbara Kingsolver Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It’s the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-coloured hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labour, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favour of cities.

THE DEED | Susannah Begbie On the Tasman Peninsula, nestled amidst the largest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere, is Shacktown. Here the Dempsey family have run a drug ring for generations, using the fishing industry and the deadly Black Wind as cover. But when thirteen-year-old Forest Dempsey walks out of the ocean, bruised and branded, everything is at risk – because Forest has been presumed dead for the last seven years.

Book Club Recommendation THE DEEP | Kyle Perry On the Tasman Peninsula, nestled amidst the largest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere, is Shacktown. Here the Dempsey family have run a drug ring for generations, using the fishing industry and the deadly Black Wind as cover. But when thirteen-year-old Forest Dempsey walks out of the ocean, bruised and branded, everything is at risk – because Forest has been presumed dead for the last seven years.

DEVOTION | Hannah Kent Prussia, 1836 - Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature - she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity...until she meets Thea.

Ocean, 1838 - The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God's law and at odds with their King's order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne's heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break. The whale passed. The music faded. South Australia, 1838 - A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible...is devotion.

THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS | Pip Williams Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

DIRT TOWN | Hayley Scrivenor On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home. Ronnie's going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone, Ronnie won't believe it. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it. She has seen what people are capable of.

She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible. Lewis can believe it too. But he can't reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret. Five days later, Esther's buried body is discovered.

DOPPELGANGER | Naomi Klein What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired a double? Someone almost like you, and yet not you at all?

When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn't. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity - all we have to meet the world - so unstable?

THE END OF CUTHBERT CLOSE | Cassie Hamer Food stylist Cara, corporate lawyer Alex and stay-at-home mum Beth couldn't be more different. If it wasn't for the fact they live next door to each other in Cuthbert Close, they'd never have met and bonded over Bundt cake. The Close is an oasis of calm and kindness. The kind of street where kids play cricket together and neighbours pitch in each year for an end of summer party. But no one's told Charlie Devine, glamorous wife of online lifestyle guru, The Primal Guy. When she roars straight into the party with her huge removal truck and her teenage daughter with no care or regard for decades-old tradition, the guacamole really hits the fan. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your neighbours.

EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING | Nadine J. Cohen When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons and some truly terrible erotic literature.

Everyone and Everything is about family, mental health and inherited trauma, told with humour and humility, an intimate exploration of grief and inherited trauma, it asks what makes us who we are and what leads us onto ledges.

FAKE | Stephanie Wood When Stephanie Wood meets a former architect turned farmer she embarks on an exhilarating romance with him. He seems compassionate, loving, truthful. They talk about the future. She falls in love. She also becomes increasingly beset by anxiety at his frequent cancellations, no-shows and bizarre excuses. She starts to wonder, who is this man? When she ends the relationship Stephanie reboots her journalism skills and embarks on a romantic investigation. She discovers a story of mind-boggling duplicity and manipulation. She learns that the man she thought she was in love with doesn’t exist. She also finds she is not alone; that the world is full of smart people who have suffered at the hands of liars, cheats, narcissists, fantasists and phonies, people enormously skilled in the art of deception.

THE FAMILY STRING | Denise Picton Dorcas, an aspiring vet, dreams of having a dog, or failing that, a guinea pig named Thruppence. Ruthy wants to attend writing school, and Caleb wants to play footy with the local team. But Christadelphians aren’t allowed to be ‘of the world’ and when their older brother Daniel is exiled to door knock and spread the good word in New South Wales after being caught making out with Esther Dawlish at youth camp, each try their hardest to suppress their dreams for a bigger life. But for a girl like Dorcas, dreams have a habit of surfacing at the most inopportune moments, and as she strives to be the daughter her mother desires, a chain of mishaps lead to a tragedy no one could have foreseen.

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD | Thomas Hardy Bathsheba Everdene, independent and uncompromising, comes to a small rural community to take up a position as a farmer, where her confident presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the seducer Sergeant Troy and devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. As each man complicates her life, Bathsheba becomes an object of superstition, judgement and betrayal.

THE FARM | Joanne Ramos Ambitious businesswoman Mae Yu runs Golden Oaks – a luxury retreat transforming the fertility economy – where women get the very best of everything, so long as they play by the rules. Jane is a young immigrant in search of a better future. Stuck living in a cramped dorm with her baby daughter and shrewd aunt Ate, she sees an unmissable chance to change her life. But at what cost? A novel that explores the role of luck and merit, class, ambition and sacrifice.

THE FRAUD | Zadie Smith Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter. Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.

FROM SCRATCH | Tembi Locke From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela, as she begins to piece together a life without her husband in his tiny hometown hamlet of farmers. Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family and his origins, now she finds solace and nourishment - literally and spiritually - at her mother in law’s table. In the Sicilian countryside, she discovers the healing gifts of simple fresh food, the embrace of a close knit community, and timeless traditions and wisdom that light a path forward. All along the way she reflects on her and Saro’s incredible romance - an indelible love story that leaps off the pages.

THE GODMOTHERS | Monica McInerney Eliza Miller grew up in Australia as the only daughter of a troubled young mother, but with the constant support of two watchful godmothers, Olivia and Maxie. Despite her tricky childhood, she always felt loved and secure. Until, just before her eighteenth birthday, a tragic event changed her life. Thirteen years on, Eliza is deliberately living as safely as possible, avoiding close relationships and devoting herself to her job. Out of the blue, an enticing invitation from one of her godmothers prompts a leap into the unknown. Within a fortnight, Eliza finds herself in the middle of a complicated family in Edinburgh. There's no such thing as an ordinary day any more. Yet, amidst the chaos, Eliza begins to blossom. She finds herself not only hopeful about the future, but ready to explore her past, including the biggest mystery of all - who is her father?

THE GOOD TEACHER | Petronella McGovern Every evening, Allison watches her husband's new house, desperate to find some answers. Every morning, she puts on a brave face to teach kindergarten. She's a good teacher, everyone says so - this stalking is just a tiny crack in her usual self-control. A late enrolment into her class brings little Gracie. Allison takes the sick girl under her wing, smothering Gracie with the love she can't give her own son. When Gracie has a chance to go to America for treatment, Allison whips up the community into a frenzied fundraising drive. But as others start to question her judgement and the police arrive at her door, Allison wonders if she can trust herself. Has she crossed a line? How far will the good teacher go to change a life? And whose life will that be?

GHOSTS OF THE PAST | Tony Park Is a century-old secret still worth dying for?

Will tracing the history of a maverick Australian adventurer in southern Africa lead two intrepid researchers to untold riches or to suffer the same unimaginable fate?

Historical adventure meets modern thriller in this epic story of war, betrayal, greed and love, based on true events.

THE GIVER OF STARS | Jojo Moyes Alice Wright makes an impulsive decision to marry wealthy American Bennett Van Cleve and leave her home and family in England behind. But stuffy, disapproving Baileyville, Kentucky, where her husband favours work over his wife and is dominated by his overbearing father, is not the adventure - or the escape - that she hoped for. That is, until she meets Margery O'Hare, a troublesome woman - and daughter of a notorious felon - the town wishes to forget. Margery's on a mission to spread the wonder of books and reading to the poor and lost - and she needs Alice's help. Trekking alone under big open skies, through wild mountain forests, Alice, Margery and their fellow sisters of the trail discover freedom, friendship - and a life to call their own.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH | John Steinbeck A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

HAMNET | Maggie O'Farrell Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | Eddie Jaku During the Holocaust, Eddie Jaku faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day.

He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on Earth'. Shortly after his 100th birthday, Eddie published his memoir, The Happiest Man on Earth, wanting to share all he has learned about hope, kindness and friendship.

HELLO SUNSHINE | Laura Dave Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream. A lifestyle guru, Sunshine is beloved by millions of people who tune into her YouTube cooking show, and millions more scour her website for recipes, wisdom, and suggestions for how to curate a perfect life. Sunshine seems to have it all. But she's hiding who she really is. And when her secret is revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. What Sunshine does in the ashes of destruction will save her in more ways than she can imagine.

THE HERD | Emily Edwards You should never judge how someone chooses to raise their child. Elizabeth and Bryony are polar opposites but their unexpected friendship has always worked.

They're the best of friends, and godmothers to each other's daughters - because they trust that the safety of their children is both of their top priority. But what if their choice could harm your own child? Little do they know that they differ over one very important issue. And when Bryony, afraid of being judged, tells what is supposed to be a harmless white lie before a child's birthday party, the consequences are more catastrophic than either of them could ever have imagined . . .

HERE IN THE AFTER | Marion Frith Anna has survived the worst. So has Nat. Two broken souls, struggling to find a place in a world they no longer fit. Anna is the victim of a terrorist attack in which eleven others were murdered. Nat is an Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan.

They have so little in common. And so much. A friendship stirs between them, tentative and unlikely, its foundation the violence they have seen and the memories that stalk them. Together, they begin to search for a way back home.

But when Nat's wife falls unexpectedly pregnant, terrible ghosts from his wartime past rise up and much more than a friendship is at stake. Here in the after is a poignant and uplifting exploration of the legacy of trauma and the healing power of connection.

HERE ONE MOMENT | Liane Moriarty If you knew when you were going to die, what would you do differently?

It all begins on a flight from Hobart to Sydney. The flight will be smooth. It will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off the plane.

But almost all of them will be changed forever.

Because on this ordinary flight, something extraordinary happens. 'A lady', unremarkable until she isn't, predicts how and when many of the passengers are going to die. For some, death is far in the future; for others, it is very close.

Book Club Recommendation THE HERMIT | S. R. White After a puzzling death in the wild bushlands of Australia, detective Dana Russo has just hours to interrogate the prime suspect - a silent, inscrutable man found at the scene of the crime, who disappeared without trace 15 years earlier. But where has he been? Why won't he talk? And exactly how dangerous is he? Without conclusive evidence to prove his guilt, Dana faces a desperate race against time to persuade him to speak. But as each interview spirals with fevered intensity, Dana must reckon with her own traumatic past to reveal the shocking truth . . .

THE HITCHHIKER | Gabriel Bergmoser Pushing fifty and reeling from an ugly divorce, Paul has decided it's time for an adventure. With the Bee Gees on the car stereo and the open road ahead, he sets out into the middle of nowhere, ready for whatever comes. But things take a sinister turn when he impulsively decides to pick up a hitchhiker. Clutching a ragged backpack and with his eyes locked on the rear-view mirror, this twitchy young man is clearly running from something. But what? And when the truth is revealed, how far will he – and Paul – go to survive?

Staff Recommendation

HONEYBEE | Craig Silvey Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms.

Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other

HORSE | Geraldine Brooks A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

I’LL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS | Kylie Ladd The O’Shea sisters couldn’t be more different.

Allison, an obstetrician, has always put others before herself and is torn between her job and young family. Prizewinning film director Bridie hasn’t had work in over a decade, though her actor husband is on the brink of stardom.

Clare, desperate for a baby, is bereft when her wife leaves her after their latest IVF failure. And Emma, the youngest, has turned to God to fill the aching loneliness in her life. When their only brother Daniel is killed the four women drift even further apart…

On the third anniversary of Daniel's death, Clare proposes an idea: they should trace the many recipients saved by his donated organs. Perhaps their brother's gift of life can bring them back together again? Book Club Recommendation

THE JAM QUEENS | Josephine Moon When an invitation to travel across Australia on the Ghan for her mother's seventieth birthday comes her way, she is at first apprehensive. But the trip offers a precious opportunity to spend some quality time with both her disgruntled mother, Valeria, and her distant daughter, Holly, as well as her meddling great-aunt, Myrtle.

The four generations of the family, all single women, will be reunited at last. As the iconic train chugs its way beneath majestic desert skies, Aggie's difficult past resurfaces, her business comes under threat, and long-held family rifts reignite. To complicate things further, she's distracted by the attentions of a handsome younger man on his own search for meaning in some of the country's most remote and magical places.

JUICE | Tim Winton Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. Problem is, they’re not alone. So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.

Staff Recommendation

JUST ONE TASTE | Lizzy Dent When Olive Stone and her Italian pseudo-celebrity chef father fell out fourteen years ago, annoyingly handsome Leo Ricci slipped right in as his surrogate son and sous-chef. No one is more surprised than Olive when her father wills her his beloved (and now failing) restaurant. Or that his dying wish was for Olive and Leo to complete his cookbook ... together. She's determined to sell the restaurant. Leo is determined to convince her not to. As they embark on four weeks in Italy, traveling from Sicily to Tuscany to Liguria, they'll test each other as often as they test recipes. But the more time Olive and Leo spend together the more undeniable their attraction grows. Olive finds herself wondering whether selling the restaurant might be running away, and what it might be like to try just one taste of Leo Ricci. Because he isn't who she expected, and this trip might reveal more about who Olive is than she's ready for.

Staff Recommendation

THE LABYRINTH | Amanda Lohrey Erica Marsden's son, an artist, has been imprisoned for homicidal negligence. In a state of grief, Erica cuts off all ties to family and friends, and retreats to a quiet hamlet on the south-east coast near the prison where he is serving his sentence.

There, in a rundown shack, she obsesses over creating a labyrinth by the ocean. To build it-to find a way out of her quandary-Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust, and to reckon with her past. The Labyrinth is a hypnotic story of guilt and denial, of the fraught relationship between parents and children, that is also a meditation on how art can both be ruthlessly destructive and restore sanity. It shows Amanda Lohrey to be at the peak of her powers.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF MRS HENRY PARKER | Joanna Pell As the wife of retired ship's doctor Dr Henry Parker, Evelyn is living out her twilight years aboard the Golden Sunset. Every night she dresses for dinner - gown, tiara, runners - and regales her fellow passengers with stories of a glamorous life travelling the world in luxury. But now Henry is missing, and it is up to Evelyn to find him. This story is a love letter to the memories we make over the course of a lifetime, and how the heart remembers what matters, even when the mind has long forgotten.

LATE IN THE DAY | Tessa Hadley Alex and Christine and Zach and Lydia have been inseparable since their twenties.

From student house-shares and grubby pubs to proper homes and grown-up careers, the two couples' lives have been interlinked for decades. Then one evening, Alex and Christine receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead.

Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of their loss bringing them closer, the three of them find that love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness as old entanglements and resentments rise from the past.

THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE | Matt Haig When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the Balearics Grace searches for answers about her friend's life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Staff Recommendation LIKE MOTHER | Cassandra Austin It's 1969 and mankind has leapt up to the moon, but a young mother in small-town Australia can't get past the kitchen door. Louise Ashland -is exhausted - her husband, Steven, is away on the road and her mother, Gladys, won't leave her alone. At least her baby, Dolores, has finally stopped screaming and is sweetly sleeping in her cot. Right where Louise left her. Or is she? As the day unravels, Louise will unearth secrets her mother - and perhaps her own mind - have worked hard to keep buried. But what piece of family lore is so terrible that it has been kept hidden all this time? And what will exposing it reveal about mother and daughter?

THE LOST APOTHECARY | Sarah Penner A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.

Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

THE LOST BOOKSHOP | Evie Woods On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

Book Club Recommendation

LOVEBIRDS | Amanda Hampson In their youth, lovebirds Elizabeth and Ray had to fight to be together. Their future was full of promise and, blessed with children and careers, their happiness complete. But a twist of fate changed their lives forever. Now in her sixties, Elizabeth is desperately lonely.

She rarely sees her two adult sons and her closest friend is a talkative budgie. But when her grandson, Zach, gets into trouble with the police, she decides to take him on a road trip to find his grandfather, her lost love Ray, in the hope of mending their broken family.

Two less compatible travelling companions would be hard to find, as they set off on an unlikely adventure into the wilds of the northern NSW hinterland. What they discover along the way, about Ray and each other, has the power to transform them all. In trying to save Zach, Elizabeth might just save herself.

LUCKY'S | Andrew Pippos Lucky's is a story of family. It is also about a man called Lucky. His restaurant chain. A fire that changed everything. A New Yorker article which might save a career. The mystery of a missing father. An impostor who got the girl. An unthinkable tragedy. A roll of the dice. And a story of love, lost, sought and won again, (at last).

THE LYREBIRD LAKE LADIES CHOIR | Sandie Docker Sisters Eleanor and Maggie have been running the Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir for fifteen years. It has become a haven for the lost and lonely women who have found their home in the stately federation house by the lake. When Eleanor enters the choir into the All Voices Championship, it offers them all a chance to make up for lost dreams. Single mum Hannah arrives in Lyrebird Lake, homeless after being widowed and hoping for a new start with her son. With her angelic voice, Hannah could give the choir a winning edge. But when Eleanor hears her singing a long-forgotten lullaby, she is transported to her past, a traumatic time when two teenage girls were banished from their Irish homeland to a faraway country. Will Hannah’s arrival mend old wounds, or will the secret she unknowingly carries tear the sisters apart?

Book Club Recommendation

THE MAID | Nita Prose Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She’s used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. She’s just a maid – why should anyone take notice? But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn’t a mess that can be easily cleaned up. And as Molly becomes embroiled in the hunt for the truth, following the clues whispering in the hallways of the Regency Grand, she discovers a power she never knew was there. She’s just a maid – but what can she see that others overlook?

THE MARRIAGE PORTAIT | Maggie O'Farrell Florence, the 1560s. Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de' Medici, is free to wander the palazzo at will, wondering at its treasures and observing its clandestine workings. But when her older sister dies on the eve of marriage to Alfonso d'Este, ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood, Lucrezia must now make her way in a troubled court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate her appears before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

MOONLITE | Garry Linnell George Scott was born into a privileged life in famine-wracked Ireland. His family lost its fortune and fled to New Zealand. There, Scott joins the local militia and after recovering from gunshot wounds, sails to Australia.One night he dons a mask in a small country town, arms himself with a gun and, dubbing himself Captain Moonlite, brazenly robs a bank before staging one of the country's most audacious jailbreaks. After falling in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt, a boyish petty criminal desperately searching for a father figure, Scott finds himself unable to shrug off his criminal past. Pursued and harassed by the police, he stages a dramatic siege and prepares for a final showdown with the law - and a macabre executioner without a nose. Told at a cracking pace, and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually-repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century.

ON A BRIGHT HILLSIDE IN PARADISE | Annette Higgs Told from five different points of view, each one revealing something different, On a Bright Hillside in Paradise, tells the story of a family of convict descendants in the back-blocks of Tasmania, on a farm in a place called Paradise. They lead hardscrabble lives. The drama begins when strangers arrive, Christian Brethren evangelists who hold big revival meetings in local barns.

OUR HIDEOUS PROGENY | C.E. McGill Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. She knows her uncle disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Arctic but she doesn't know why or how. She and her husband are trying to make a name for themselves as paleontologists but, in 1850s' London, scientific success requires wealth and connections - neither of which they possess. But then Mary discovers some old family papers that allude to the truth behind her great-uncle's past, of his attempts to create a living being and the creature that ultimately killed him. Perhaps this idea will prove to be their salvation...

THE PARIS APARTMENT | Lucy Foley In a beautiful old apartment block, deep in the backstreets of Paris, secrets are stirring behind every resident’s door.

The lonely wife; The party animal; The curtain-twitcher; The secret lover; The watchful caretaker; The unwanted guest One resident is missing. Only the killer holds the key to the mystery…

THE PARIS DAUGHTER | Kristin Harmel Paris, 1939. Elise and Juliette, both young mothers-to-be, are certain nothing can come between them. So, when war breaks out and Elise must flee the Nazis, she entrusts Juliette with her young daughter, playmate to Juliette's own little girl.

But Juliette's world is destroyed when a bomb falls on the neighbourhood of her small bookshop, La Librairie des Reves. Elise returns after the war to reclaim her daughter, only to learn that Juliette survived, along with a little girl - but which little girl? Elise's desperate search for answers ultimately leads her to New York, and to Juliette, one final, fateful time.

PERSUASION | Jane Austen Persuasion, Jane Austen's last novel, is a moving, masterly and elegiac love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities. It tells the story of Anne Elliot, who, persuaded to break off her engagement to the man she loved because he was not successful enough, has never forgotten him. When he returns, he brings with him a tantalizing second chance of happiness . . .

Book Club Recommendation

PRAISEWORTHY | Alexis Wright In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.

Book Club Recommendation

PRIMA FACIE | Suzie Miller Tessa is a thoroughbred. A young, brilliant barrister from a working-class background now at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. The law is a game and she is its most talented player. One sickening night, though, Tessa finds herself in a position countless women - one in three - have been in before her. And she's faced with a gutwrenching, life-changing decision. Will she take the stand to testify about her rape, with the full awareness that the system has not been built to protect her?

Staff Recommendation THE PROMISE | Damon Galgut The Promise is an expansive family novel that explores the interconnected relationships between members of one family through the sequential lens of multiple funerals. Death assumes here both a closing but also an opening into lives lived. It is an unusual narrative style that balances Faulknerian exuberance with Nabokovian precision, pushes boundaries, and is a testament to the flourishing of the novel in the 21st century. In The Promise, Damon Galgut makes a strong, unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself that can best be summed up in the question: does true justice exist in this world?

THE PROXY BRIDE | Zoe Boccabella Imagine marrying someone you've never met...

In 1939, Giacinta sets sail from Italy to Australia. Decades later, a granddaughter discovers the true story of her family... A stunningly crafted novel of family, secrets and facing adversity

REBECCA | Daphne Du Maurier On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's Cornish estate, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.

RIPPER | Shelley Burr Gemma Guillory has lived in Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny town's ins and outs like the back of her hand, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own. She knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only. That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of death seventeen years ago was her innocuous little teashop. She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate - desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier's reputation as the murder town. When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma's doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer's wake turns to foreboding, and she's drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.

Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn't she?

ROSE | Suzanne Falkiner In 1814, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, nineteen-year-old Rose Pinon married handsome naval officer Louis de Freycinet, fifteen years her senior. Three years later, unable to bear parting from her husband, she dressed in men's clothing and slipped secretly aboard his ship the day before it sailed on a voyage of scientific discovery to the South Seas. Living for three years as the sole female among 120 men, Rose de Freycinet defied not only bourgeois society's expectations of a woman in 1817, but also a strict prohibition against women sailing on French naval ships. Whether dancing at governors' balls in distant colonies, or evading pirates and meeting armed Indigenous warriors on remote Australian shores, or surviving shipwreck in the wintry Falkland Islands, Rose used her quick pen to record her daily experiences, becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the world and leave a record of her journey.

SAFE HAVEN | Shankari Chandran It was a beautiful evening. The wind gathered speed, lifting the frangipanis from the grove behind him, pink and yellow petals defying gravity. Beyond the trees, hidden by the foliage and rows of towering palm trees, the detention centre slept fitfully in the heavy summer heat. The palms blocked the ocean gust that now swirled around him, filling his lungs with the taste of temple flowers and salt.

It reminded him of home. He took a deep breath, stepped off the escarpment and felt the red sand rush up towards him. Arriving in Australia seeking asylum, Fina dedicates herself to aiding the refugees who are held in Port Camden, a remote island outpost. Over time she settles into a life within a community of like-minded people, finding a new family, far from her original home. After she speaks out for those being detained, Fina becomes the focus of a media storm that leads to her arrest, and the threat of deportation. When a security officer dies under suspicious circumstances, Lucky, a special investigator, arrives to uncover the truth. The mystery is tied to Fina’s fate—and the secrets she reveals will divide the town and the nation Book Club Recommendation

SCRUBLANDS | Chris Hammer Set in a fictional Riverina town at the height of a devastating drought, Scrublands is one of the most powerful, compelling and original crime novels to be written in Australia. In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself. A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.

SHUGGIE BAIN | Douglas Stuart It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different.

Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

SNAKE ISLAND | Ben Hobson Vernon and Penelope Moore never want to see their son Caleb again. Not after he hit his wife and ended up in gaol. But when Vernon hears that Caleb is being regularly visited and savagely bashed by a local criminal as the police stand by, he realises he has to act. What has his life been as a father if he turns his back on his son in his hour of desperate need? The father of Caleb's attacker is head of a violent crime family. The town lives in fear of him but Vernon is determined to fix things in a civilised way, father to father. If he shows respect, he reasons, it will be reciprocated. But how wrong he is.

SOMETHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN | Jessie Stephens Adella is facing the dawn of a new year and the end of her twenties - and she's in a psychiatric unit recovering from a mental breakdown. A decade earlier, her life held such promise; she had every option in her hand. How did it come to this? As we go back and walk with Adella through her twenties, she searches for her grand purpose through love, career and travel. At her side through the tumultuous highs and lows is her best friend, Jake, facing his own challenges and opportunities. They both know the future must have something better to offer - but why does it also always feel, in the bottom of their stomachs, as though something bad is going to happen?

STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND | Liz Nugent Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .

THE SUMMER WE RAN AWAY | Jenny Oliver In Cedar Road, everyone is preparing for Lexi’s ‘White Hot’ summer party. For one night, parking squabbles and petitions are put aside as neighbours sip Prosecco under the fairy lights and gather by the hot tub to marvel at Lexi’s effortlessly glamorous life with Hot Hamish. For Julia, it’s a chance to coax husband Charlie out of his potting shed and into a shirt so they can have a welcome break from the hellish house renovation they’ve been wrestling with. And it’s a chance for Julia to pretend – just for a night – that her life is as perfect as Lexi’s. But when, during the party, one of Julia’s WhatsApp messages falls into the wrong hands and reveals her most intimate thoughts, things reach boiling point. And when all the neighbours know exactly what you’re thinking, there’s only one thing to do.

Run away. It’s going to be a summer Julia will never forget.

TAKING TOM MURRAY HOME | Tim Slee Bankrupt dairy farmer Tom Murray decides he'd rather sell off his herd and burn down his own house than hand them over to the bank. But something goes tragically wrong, and Tom dies in the blaze. His wife, Dawn, doesn't want him to have died for nothing and decides to hold a funeral procession for Tom as a protest, driving 350km from Yardley in country Victoria to bury him in Melbourne where he was born. To make a bigger impact she agrees with some neighbours to put his coffin on a horse and cart and take it slow - real slow. But on the night of their departure, someone burns down the local bank. And as the motley funeral procession passes through Victoria, there are more mysterious arson attacks. Dawn has five days to get to Melbourne before the police impound the coffin and force her to bury her husband. Five days, five more towns, and a state ready to explode in flames...

THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ | Heather Morris Lale Sokolov is well dressed, a charmer, a ladies’ man. He’s also a Jew. On the first transport from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Lale immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for and put to work in the privileged position of tattooist to mark his fellow prisoners , forever. One of them is a young woman who steals his heart at first glance. This true story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews with Lale - it is heart wrenching, illuminating and unforgettable.

TELL ME EVERYTHING | Elizabeth Strout It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – "unrecorded lives," Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Book Club Recommendation

THERE WAS STILL LOVE | Favel Parrett Favel Parrett's deep emotional insight and stellar literary talent shine through in this love letter to the strong women who bind families together, despite dislocation and distance. It is a tender and beautifully told story of memory, family and love.

Because there is still love. No matter what.

TIPPING | Anna George Liv Winsome, overwhelmed, working mother of three sons, wife to decent if distracted Duncan, reaches tipping point, when one of her sons is involved in an Instagram scandal.

Then her husband accidentally locks her in the car. Things need to change in Liv’s world, and fast. So Liv delegates chores on the home front, challenges Duncan to tune in, and lets her boys’ conservative school know it has work to do, too. Whatever those students are currently learning about respect isn’t getting through. Reluctantly, Duncan tweaks his work/family balance and Carmichael Grammar agrees to look at itself through the lens of gender. A colourful expert arrives, with a raft of interventions to improve the school’s culture and its students’ behaviour. To everyone’s surprise, things actually start to get better. Not everyone, though, is happy about it.

THE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST | Gabbie Stroud The staff of St Margaret's Primary School are hanging by a thread. There's serious litigation pending, the school is due for registration, and a powerful parent named Janet Bellevue has a lot to say about everything. As teachers they're trying to remain professional, as people they're unravelling fast.

As secrets threaten to be exposed and working demands increase, each staff member struggles to recall the things that matter most.

THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE | Richard Osman It's rarely a quiet day for the Thursday Murder Club. Shocking news reaches them-an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. The gang's search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers, and online fraudsters--as well as heartache close to home--Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust. With the body count rising, the clock ticking down, and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out?

And who will be the last devil to die?

TOM LAKE | Ann Patchett In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theatre company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

TWELVE SECRETS | Robert Logan Ben Harper's life changed for ever the day his older brother Nick was murdered by two classmates. It was a crime that shocked the nation and catapulted Ben's family and their idyllic hometown, Haddley, into the spotlight. Twenty years on, Ben is one of the best investigative journalists in the country and settled back in Haddley, thanks to the support of its close-knit community. But then a fresh murder case shines new light on his brother's death and throws suspicion on those closest to him. Ben is about to discover that in Haddley no one is as they seem. Everyone has something to hide.

THE VISITORS | Jane Harrison On a steamy, hot day in January 1788, seven Aboriginal men, representing the nearby clans, gather at Warrane. Several newly arrived ships have been sighted in the great bay to the south, Kamay. The men meet to discuss their response to these visitors. All day, they talk, argue, debate. Where are the visitors from? What do they want? Might they just warra warra wai back to where they came from? Should they be welcomed? Or should they be made to leave? The decision of the men must be unanimous -- and will have far-reaching implications for all. Throughout the day, the weather is strange, with mammatus clouds, unbearable heat and a pending thunderstorm ... Somewhere, trouble is brewing.

WEARING PAPER DRESSES | Anne Brinsden Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises. As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can't forget.

WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS | Catherine Newman Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestonesstealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.' So when Edi is diagnosed with cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from making watermelon ice cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night.

Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.

WE WERE NEVER HERE | Andrea Bartz Your best friend killed a man. Now, she needs your help. But can you really trust her motives? Her Last Holiday meets Thelma and Louise. Emily is on holiday with her best friend, Kristen, in the stunning mountains of Chile. It's heaven on earth, until, on the last night of the trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find it covered in blood. Kristen claims a backpacker attacked her. She shouted, but no-one heard.

She struggled, but he was too strong. She had no option but to kill him. With no evidence of the assault, Emily must help her hide the body. . . But, as the walls close in on their cover-up, Emily asks herself- can she really trust her closest friend?

THE WEEKEND | Charlotte Wood Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.

Can they survive together without her? They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual, and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for Christmas at Sylvie's old beach house - not for festivities, but to clean the place out before it is sold. Without Sylvie to maintain the group's delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface - and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.

WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA | Dervla McTiernan Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family's cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home. Simon's explanation about what happened in their last hours together doesn't add up. Nina's parents push the police for answers, and Simon's parents rush to protect him. Soon, facts are lost in a swirl of accusation and counter-accusation. Everyone chooses a side, and the story goes viral, fuelled by armchair investigators and wild conspiracy theories and illustrated with pretty pictures taken from Nina's social media accounts. Out-gunned by Simon's wealthy, powerful family, Nina's parents recognise that if playing by the rules won't get them anywhere, it's time to break them.

Book Club Recommendation

WHAT I WOULD DO TO YOU | Georgia Harper A near-future Australia.

The death penalty is back. But if the victim’s family wants the perpetrator to die, they have to do it themselves. Twenty-four hours alone in a room with the condemned. No cameras. No microphones. Just whatever punishment they decide befits the crime. Ten-year-old Lucy was murdered. Through counselling sessions with their court-appointed psychologist, we learn the stories of her family members: Lucy’s two mothers – Stella and Matisse – her much older brother and her bookish teenage sister, who is too young to participate in the execution, but who has plans of her own . . .

Staff Recommendation

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING | Delia Owens For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.

Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.

THE WHITE GIRL | Tony Birch Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town.

Raising her granddaughter Sissy on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing Aboriginal children from their communities. When the menacing Sergeant Lowe arrives in town, determined to fully enforce the law, any freedom that Odette and Sissy enjoy comes under grave threat. Odette must make an impossible choice to protect her family.

THE WIFE & THE WIDOW | Christian White The Wife and the Widow is a mystery/thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she’s forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives.

WIFEDOM | Anna Funder Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own…

Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.

WING | Nikki Gemmell Students from an elite girls' school go on a camping trip into the Australian bush. Four of them - a girl gang, a group of best friends dubbed 'The Cins' by the teachers - become separated from the main group. A male teacher volunteers to look for them. None of the five come back. A major search immediately gets underway. Days crawl past, agonisingly, with no sign of the girls or their teacher. The principal of the school, godmother to one of the missing students, is desperately trying to hold the parents, the school community - and herself - together. She needs to find out what happened before the police do. Finally, separated and traumatised, the four girls re-appear. But the male teacher does not.

And The Cins aren't talking.

Staff Recommendation THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW | A.J. Finn Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way; a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

THE WOMEN | Kristin Hannah When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances Frankie McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America. Frankie will also discover the true value of female friendship and the heartbreak that love can cause.

Book Club Recommendation

WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME | Gillian McAllister How do you stop a murder when it's already happened? Find out the lengths one woman will go to save her family. t's every parent's nightmare, your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger. You don't know who. You don't know why. You only know your teenage boy is in custody and his future lost. That night you fall asleep in despair. Until you wake, and it is yesterday. Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. Another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lie the answers, and you don't have a choice but to find them . . .

YELLOWFACE | R. F. Kuang Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.

When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.

But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

Book Club Recommendation

THE YIELD | Tara June Winch Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains.

Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.

THE YOUNGER WIFE | Sally Hepworth The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives. Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part.

Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something. The announcement of Stephen and Heather's engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface. A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle, stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that's only the beginning.

Program Details Program runs for 12 months, January to December.

All book club members MUST be members of the library.

Book clubs are entitled to one set of books per month (12 per year).

Each set contains 12 books and a folder of discussion questions.

Clubs will select their own books each month.

Books are on loan for 6 weeks.

Books cannot be renewed. If you haven’t finished reading, please check the catalogue and request a copy from the general collection.

Titles cannot be reserved.

A maximum of two titles will be issued to a book club at any given time. These restrictions ensure that as many book clubs as possible can make use of this service. Please help us to keep this service operating successfully by collecting and returning the books in a timely manner.

Book clubs must return the complete set of 12 books and folder. Incomplete sets or individual titles will not be accepted by the library.

Membership Requirements $420 membership fee to be paid in full prior to collection of the first set of books One primary contact for the book club Name and email address for each book club member All book club members must be a member of the Western Riverina Library service

Lost or Damaged Books Lost or damaged books will incur a replacement fee of $25 per item. This fee must be paid before the next set of books can be borrowed.

Book Club FAQs Who can borrow from the book club collection?

Book clubs must be registered with the Griffith City Library to borrow book club sets.

Clubs must register and pay each year.

How much does it cost?

The registration fee is $420 per club. Book Clubs receive one set of books per month from January to December (12 book sets in total). There are 12 books and discussion questions in each set. Any lost or damaged items will incur a replacement fee of $30 per item.

How do we select a book from the collection?

Available sets will be displayed in the dedicated space at Griffith City Library. Clubs can have a maximum of two sets on loan at any given time. If your club already has two sets on loan you will not be able to borrow another set until one is returned. Titles are subject to availability and we cannot guarantee that you will always receive your preferences.

Can we go on a waiting list to borrow a book club set?

Book club sets cannot be reserved.

How long can my group borrow a book club set?

The loan period is 6 weeks. Prompt collection and returning of books ensures that service runs successfully for all.

Can we borrow more than one set at a time?

Book clubs may have a maximum of two sets on loan at any given time. If your club already has two sets on loan you will not be able to borrow another set until one is returned.

How do we return a book club set?

The bag and all of its contents must be returned as a complete set to Griffith City Library during opening hours. Each book is numbered. In the back of the discussion folder is a list for you to record which member has which book. This helps to identify what books haven’t been returned and who they were on loan to.

Griffith City Library 229 Banna Ave, Griffith NSW 2680 P. 6962 8300 wrl.nsw.gov.au | library@griffith.nsw.gov.au