Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Review search

 

Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology (ed by Danielle Binks, HarperCollins)

Released May 2017

Begin, End, Begin traverses the rough terrain of adolescence, pausing to wonder at some of the many beginnings and endings that young adults will encounter during their high-school years. This... Read more

Heads and Tails (John Canty, Berbay Publishing)

Released May 2017

Heads and Tails is an educational book for small children either at home or at school, incorporating a game into the narrative to make the animal information fun rather than... Read more

Nanna’s Button Tin (Dianne Wolfer, illus by Heather Potter, Walker Books)

Released June 2017

I had a teddy who lost an eye, but my Nanna didn’t have a button tin. My daughter had a nanna who kept her buttons in a range of colour-coded... Read more

The Last Garden (Eva Hornung, Text)

Released May 2017

Eva Hornung won the PM’s Literary Award for Fiction for her 2009 novel Dog Boy. In The Last Garden, she once again explores the frailties of humans and the strength... Read more

Adult Fantasy (Briohny Doyle, Scribe)

Released June 2017

Is ‘adulthood’ still achieved by ticking off a series of milestones, like marriage, mortgages, careers and babies? How might those milestones—and our ability to tick them off—have changed since the... Read more

Woman of Substances: A Journey into Addiction and Treatment (Jenny Valentish, Black Inc.)

Released June 2017

‘Women,’ writes Jenny Valentish, ‘drink and take drugs because it’s fun. They do it to be bulletproof. To be more intimate, or more intimidating.’ For most, this use is manageable.... Read more

Australian Lives: An Intimate History (Anisa Puri & Alistair Thomson, Monash University Press)

Released May 2017

Using interviews recorded by the National Library of Australia’s Australian Generations Oral History Project, the authors of this major book have selected the recorded stories of 50 people to provide... Read more

The Hot Guy (Mel Campbell & Anthony Morris, Echo)

Released May 2017

When sports publicist Cate is dumped by her boyfriend for inappropriate puns about polo and social climbing, her friends introduce her to The Hot Guy—refuge of dumped women everywhere and... Read more

Congo Dawn (Katherine Scholes, Viking)

Released April 2017

Gunfire and grenades. Suffering and bravery. Fathers and daughters. In her seventh adult novel, Katherine Scholes (author of The Rain Queen, The Stone Angel and The Perfect Wife) again draws... Read more

The Hidden Hours (Sara Foster, S&S)

Released April 2017

Arabella Lane is a beautiful, successful publishing executive whose body is found in the Thames following the office Christmas party. The last person to see Arabella alive is Eleanor, who... Read more

A Hundred Small Lessons (Ashley Hay, A&U)

Released April 2017

A Hundred Small Lessons (the title is drawn from a Michael Ondaatje poem) explores notions of home, family, identity, creativity, ageing and our relationship with cities and the natural world.... Read more

The Midsummer Garden (Kirsty Manning, A&U)

Released April 2017

The Midsummer Garden is the first novel from former lifestyle and travel writer Kirsty Manning, and follows two storylines in tandem. One narrative centres on medieval French cook Artemisia and... Read more

Rubik (Elizabeth Tan, Brio)

Released April 2017

In Elizabeth Tan’s debut novel-in-stories, the untimely death of young Perth woman Elena Rubik tears a hole in the fabric of reality, and the reader is thrown into a sprawling... Read more

See What I Have Done (Sarah Schmidt, Hachette)

Released April 2017

Like Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites and Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s The Love of a Bad Man, See What I Have Done is based on true crimes committed by women. In 1892, 32-year-old Lizzie... Read more

Storyland (Catherine McKinnon, Fourth Estate)

Released April 2017

Storyland by author and playwright Catherine McKinnon is a beautifully woven story of Australia: the land, the animals and the people—those who have always been here, those that have arrived,... Read more

On the Many Shapes Bodies Will Take (Karen Andrews, Miscellaneous Press)

Released April 2017

Karen Andrews’ reputation as a writer, editor and publisher precedes her, and this slim volume of poetry tackles the course of a life with such tenderness and grace that you... Read more

After (Nikki Gemmell, Fourth Estate)

Released April 2017

Freedom is the right to choose the way we live, but what about the way we die? Euthanasia is a difficult subject and one that creates an emotional and political... Read more

Beyond the Rock: The Life of Joan Lindsay and the Mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Janelle McCulloch, Echo)

Released May 2017

Strange, moody and yet also darkly comic, Picnic at Hanging Rock has enjoyed Australian classic status for close to 50 years. Is the novel fact or fiction? The question has... Read more

Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942 (Allan Gyngell, LTUP)

Released April 2017

Allan Gyngell has written Fear of Abandonment with detail and insight drawn from a long career in foreign policy, from diplomat to intelligence advisor. It examines Australia’s involvement with the... Read more

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (Peter Godfrey-Smith, HarperCollins)

Released April 2017

When we think of intelligence in the animal kingdom, it is usually the mammals that spring to mind, like dogs or chimps—the creatures that we can most easily identify with.... Read more