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Quicksand (Steve Toltz, Hamish Hamilton)
Released May 2015
This long-awaited follow-up to A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz’s 2008 Booker Prize-shortlisted debut, is similarly full of larrikin philosophers, artists and eccentrics hatching schemes and generally failing at... Read more
Secret Keeping for Beginners (Maggie Alderson, HarperCollins)
Released May 2015
As a long-time fan of Maggie Alderson’s fashion columns and fiction, I jumped at the chance to review her latest offering. The story follows the lives of high-achieving sisters Tessa,... Read more
The Soldier’s Wife (Pamela Hart, Hachette)
Released May 2015
The Soldier’s Wife is a curate’s egg of a novel in that it is excellent in parts. Written by Pamela Freeman under the pen name Pamela Hart, it evokes WWI... Read more
The Life of Houses (Lisa Gorton, Giramondo)
Released May 2015
Reading The Life of Houses sometimes felt more like eavesdropping. Lisa Gorton’s first novel for adults—following a YA novel and two collections of poetry—exposes the innermost thoughts of her characters with an... Read more
An Ordinary Epidemic (Amanda Hickie, MidnightSun Publishing)
Released May 2015
What would you do in an epidemic? Stock up your pantry, gather your family and wait it out? But what if one of your kids was away on a school... Read more
Palace of Tears (Julian Leatherdale, A&U)
Released May 2015
Fans of historical sagas will be satiated with this epic tale of family, mystery and passion set against the backdrop of an opulent Blue Mountains hotel. Facing her mother’s decline... Read more
Crow’s Breath (John Kinsella, Transit Lounge)
Released May 2015
Kinsella’s latest volume is a potpourri of characters and tales, mostly unified by a sense of place in the Australian landscape. Some of these short stories are observations from lives... Read more
Captive Prince (C S Pacat, Berkly)
Released April 2015
This queer-themed erotic novel by Australian author C S Pacat explores dominance, submission and cutthroat politics in a fantasy setting. Damianos is the prince of Akielos. He is expecting to... Read more
Selling Students Short (Richard Hil, A&U)
Released May 2015
As a long-time university student, this book struck a chord with me; not only is it a critique of Australia’s higher education business model, but it also offers a perspective... Read more
Through the Wall (Anna Bligh, HarperCollins)
Released April 2015
All political memoirs are, to some extent, exercises in self-justification, but former Queensland premier Anna Bligh’s also manages to be an entertaining and often inspiring story. This book is mostly... Read more
Let’s Eat (Margaret Pomeranz & Philippa Whitfield Pomeranz, HarperCollins)
Released May 2015
Let’s Eat is the debut cookbook from beloved film critic Margaret Pomeranz, co-written with her daughter-in-law Pip. Its strength lies in its charming, poignant and entertaining vignettes with the famous... Read more
Copyfight (ed by Phillipa McGuinness, NewSouth)
Released May 2015
The idea for this book was a good one: to collect different voices on copyright in Australia today. All is not happy in creative-land, with practitioners reaping often small rewards... Read more
The Eagle Inside (Jack Manning Bancroft, illus by Bronwyn Bancroft, Little Hare)
Released May 2015
At Jimmy the honeyeater’s first day of flying school, he quickly becomes the target of other, bigger birds, who tease and taunt him. He is the only honeyeater and far... Read more
Billie’s Underwater Adventure (Sally Rippin, illus by Alisa Coburn, Hardie Grant Egmont)
Released April 2015
Billie B has entered the picture book world in Sally Rippin’s new series, ‘Billie’s Super Dooper Adventures’. Seeing a gap in the three-plus pre-school market, Rippin has taken Billie B... Read more
Bogtrotter (Margaret Wild, illus by Judith Rossell, Walker Books)
Released May 2015
Some of us spend our lives doing the same thing all day long, every day, day in, day out. We yearn for something different but don’t know how to find... Read more
A Curry for Murray (Kate Hunter, illus by Lucia Masciullo, UQP)
Released May 2015
Molly lives next door to Murray and Maureen. When Maureen has to go to hospital, the piggy-tailed little girl decides to look after Murray, who is home alone. With the... Read more
Fish Jam (Kylie Howarth, Five Mile Press)
Released April 2015
Jonah and the Whale has got nothing on this book! Toot is a fish who likes to make noise and he loves nothing better than making music. But the rest... Read more
Too Much for Turtle (Cat Rabbit & Isobel Knowles, Thames & Hudson)
Released April 2015
With their beautifully delicate handmade felt and cardboard scenes, Cat Rabbit and Isobel Knowles have created another delightful book following their bestseller Owl Know How. In Too Much for Turtle,... Read more
Alice’s Food A-Z (Alice Zaslavsky, illus by Kat Chadwick, Walker Books)
Released April 2015
Too often children’s cookbooks are just bad collections of cheap, cheesy content and recipes for happy-face pizzas, which makes finding a good cookbook for primary school kids or your own... Read more
Prince of Afghanistan (Louis Nowra, A&U)
Released April 2015
When a hostage rescue mission in a remote region of Afghanistan suddenly goes wrong, 18-year-old Corporal Mark Hollis and an army sniffer dog, Prince, are the only survivors—and now they... Read more
