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The Coast (Chris Hammer, MUP)

Released September 2012

Many readers will recall The River, Chris Hammer’s award-winning study of the Murray-Darling river system. This new work is much larger in scope, encompassing a journey down the coast of... Read more

Whisky Charlie Foxtrot (Annabel Smith, Fremantle Press)

Released November 2012

Charlie Ferns has grown up in the shadow of his identical twin brother William, or Whisky, as he is known after a childhood game of walkie-talkies. We meet the brothers... Read more

The Voyage (Murray Bail, Text)

Released October 2012

Murray Bail has been masterfully reinventing his writing for more than 30 years in short fiction, novels, criticism and art history. In The Voyage, his first novel in three years,... Read more

Las Vegas for Vegans (A S Patric, Transit Lounge)

Released October 2012

This is the second collection of short stories from Melbourne writer (and bookseller) A S Patric, following last year’s The Rattler and Other Stories. In Las Vegas for Vegans, Patric... Read more

In Falling Snow (Mary-Rose MacColl, A&U)

Released October 2012

When Iris, an elderly widow, receives an invitation to a reunion in France, where she worked as a nurse during the First World War, she’s determined to go. But Iris’... Read more

The Happiness Show (Catherine Deveny, Black Inc.)

Released November 2012

In The Happiness Show, Australian comedian and writer Catherine Deveny turns her hand to fiction for the first time. The result is a lively, if a little predictable, blend of... Read more

Velocity (Steve Worland, Michael Joseph)

Released September 2012

Judd Bell is a NASA astronaut who has lost his mojo. Ever since his best friend was killed in a shuttle disaster, he’s been doubting himself, and the strain is... Read more

Red Dirt Talking (Jacqueline Wright, Fremantle Press)

Released October 2012

Jacqueline Wright won the TAG Hungerford Award for most promising unpublished manuscript in 2010 and Red Dirt Talking is the result. The main protagonist, Annie, is a 40-year-old woman embarking... Read more

Beneath the Darkening Sky (Majok Tulba, Hamish Hamilton)

Released July 2012

South Sudanese refugee Majok Tulba’s brutal, poetic debut views the monstrousness of war through the innocent eyes of a young boy. Beneath the Darkening Sky tells the harrowing tale of... Read more

The Swarm (Andy Kissane, Puncher & Wattmann)

Released August 2012

The characters who inhabit Andy Kissane’s engaging short stories are recognisably Australian and contemporary, as are the situations they find themselves in. A musician rediscovers music after a bereavement in... Read more

The Brain Sucker (Glenn Wood, Walker Books)

Released September 2012

Callum is stoked with the fancy new wheelchair that his gran Rose has bought him for his birthday. He’s even more stoked when his best friend Sophie, who’s a bit... Read more

A Hare, a Hound and Shy Mousey Brown (Julia Hubery, illus by Jonathan Bentley, Little Hare)

Released August 2012

Love never runs smoothly, as we all know, and love is blind. Shy Mousey Brown is in love, but his beloved doesn’t even notice him. She’s an exuberant female and... Read more

Into That Forest (Louis Nowra, A&U)

Released September 2012

Louis Nowra’s young-adult novel recreates a captivating time in Tasmanian history through the eyes of a unique narrator—a girl quite literally raised by animals. Lost and alone in the bush,... Read more

Peggy (Anna Walker, Scholastic)

Released September 2012

Peggy is an endearing character. When she finds herself far from home and overwhelmed by unfamiliar surroundings, she is not daunted. She picks herself up and goes exploring, eventually following... Read more

City (James Roy, UQP)

Released September 2012

In any move to a new city, familiarity takes time. The links between people and places aren’t always immediately apparent, and although one day you might find yourself strolling the... Read more

After (Morris Gleitzman, Viking)

Released September 2012

Continuing the story of Felix from Once, Then and Now, After follows the events of Then. The war is still going on and for the past two years Felix has... Read more

Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (Benjamin Law, Black Inc.)

Released September 2012

Benjamin Law embarks on a wild ride through Asia to investigate queer culture in Gaysia. In Indonesia he meets the moneyboys who prostitute themselves to Western men, usually preferring the... Read more

Alice Springs (Eleanor Hogan, NewSouth)

Released September 2012

This is no grey nomad’s guide to the red centre. In NewSouth’s latest city book, author Eleanor Hogan writes about her experiences living and working in the Aboriginal health services... Read more

To the Highlands (Jon Doust, Fremantle Press)

Released August 2012

What is a man and how does a boy become one? Jack Muir was searching for the answers to these questions in Boy on a Wire, the first book in... Read more

Sufficient Grace (Amy Espeseth, Scribe)

Released September 2012

Raised in a fundamentalist family of Pentecostals, where sin is an ever-prevalent danger, 13-year-old Ruth must reconcile her faith with reality as dark family secrets unravel over the course of... Read more