The Shut Ins – the second novel from 2016 Vogel Award winner, Katherine Brabon – takes its readers to Japan, pre-pandemic but post tsunami, and is a meditation on the all too timely and relevant themes of loneliness and isolation. Using a frame narrative of an Australian writer travelling Japan and feeling increasingly disconnected from…
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Simone moved to London to become a journalist, but then she met Paul. Now, she’s about to have his child, and nothing is turning out quite like she planned. Having a small human completely dependent on her for survival is terrifying to Simone, whose family are halfway across the world in Perth. Though he’s her…
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After her parents die in a car accident, physicist Ruth Schwarz sets off for their hometown of Greater Einland to begin preparations for their funeral. But Greater Einland is a stubborn sort of place, determined to remain hidden from outsiders, with even Austrian officials denying all knowledge of the place. But Ruth is stubborn too…
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Today, Holy Holy released their fourth studio album, Hello My Beautiful World. Our reviewer Dylan Marshall, has declared it as “their best album yet”, and it is our Album of the Week. Guitarist and vocalist Tim Carroll is also a voracious reader, and to celebrate this latest release, Tim has written for the AU, a…
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Tony Birch once again proves he is the master of short fiction in Dark As Last Night, a collection of sixteen slice of life short stories that range in time, tone and focus. In his trademark style, which brings the world to life with vivid but simple descriptions, Birch explores the various chances we’re given…
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The Romans have left Britain, abandoning it to warring tribes and the invading Saxons. Already set to inherit a land torn asunder, the children of King Cador and Queen Enica watch as their parents bend increasingly to the will of Gildas, an influential and dangerous Christian leader. Under his often cruel guidance, the people of…
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There is something about a book with a circus in it that promises the spectacular. Touted as Suffragette meets The Greatest Showman, Australian author Tania Farrelly‘s debut novel The Eighth Wonder is the story of Rose Kingsbury Smith, a young woman living in the privileged neighbourhood of the Upper East Side in New York at the turn of…
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A mother cuts her daughter’s hair because her own starts falling out. A woman leaves her boyfriend because he reminds her of a corpse; another undergoes brain surgery to try to live more comfortably in higher temperatures. A widow physically transforms into her husband so that she does not have to grieve. This is She…
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The Booker Prize, one of the industry’s most prestigious awards, has today announced it’s 13 strong longlist. To be considered for the Booker, nominated fiction works must be written in English, and published/slated to be published in the UK and Ireland between October 2020 and September 2021. Taking on the daunting task of narrowing the…
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Locust Summer, the debut novel by WA writer David Allan-Petale, has been a long time coming. Shortlisted for the 2017 Australian/Vogel Literary Award administered by Allen and Unwin, the book was released this July by Fremantle Press in the midst of Perth’s latest lockdown. The postponement of a book launch due to circumstances beyond the…
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Translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough, Helene Flood’s debut adult novel follows Sara, a Norwegian therapist, in the aftermath of her husband’s disappearance. Initially, Sigurd lies about his whereabouts in a voicemail left for Sara. Soon she uncovers a web of deceit that ultimately puts her in harm’s way. Originally published in 2019, English-speaking…
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Roh is a cyren, living in the lowest levels of Saddoriel, the cavernous, labyrinthine fortress home of her people. The daughter of an infamous criminal, she works as a lowly bone-cleaner, out of sight and out of mind, far away from the upper class cyrens who remember her mother’s crimes all too well. One day,…
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It feels strange to be writing a review of a novel in which the catalyst is a negative book review. In Palace of the Drowned, Christine Mangan (Tangerine) returns to the literary thriller genre with a story of writers block and obsession. It follows Frankie Croy, a career author whose first book was one of those…
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How do we define an Australian writer? What is Australian literature? New South Books’ latest collection of essays, Reading Like An Australian Writer doesn’t seek to answer these questions definitively. Instead, using as its source material a line-up of well-known Australian literary figures and their books, it offers up a round table of discussions on…
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After being subjected to a racist attack on a TransPennine Express train, Anita Sethi decided enough was enough. With no one on the train willing to step in and stop her abuser on his vicious tirade, she reached out to train staff and police herself, choosing to speak up for herself in a way she…
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When the Murrumbidgee River bursts its banks and sweeps into the fledgling town of Gundgai, it is Wagadhaany’s father, Yarri, and other Wiradjuri men who come to the rescue of the trapped townsfolk. Now an indentured servant to the Bradleys – a family who, years ago, ignored her father’s pleading not to build on the…
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Mel Hall’s debut novel, The Little Boat on Trusting Lane, is a tender and thoughtful reflection on the power of community in the process of healing. The Little Mother Earth Ship is an alternative healing centre based out of a houseboat aboard stilts in the middle of a scrapyard on Trusting Lane. Richard, who runs…
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One of this year’s most highly anticipated releases, Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid hit stores this month. Loosely linked to both of TJR’s previous smash hits, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six, Malibu Rising continues her theme of exploring the inner lives of the rich and famous; showing us what is really going…
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Talia is on the run. The mastermind behind a plan to escape from a home for juvenile delinquents, her end goal is simple. Reunite with her father and make it to Bogotá Airport in time for her flight to the US. And waiting for her on the other side? Her estranged mother and siblings, and…
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Steven Christie pays tribute to and pokes fun at the sometimes impenetrable, often critical, but unquestionably interesting world of art in his comedy graphic novel: Turtlenecks. When art student Sam decides to donate his beloved flower necklace to a charity art auction, his friend Jules reminds him of the sentimental significance of the item. But the…
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Lovebirds Elizabeth and Ray fight so hard to have a life they want; a life they both deserve. Elizabeth comes from a selfish family so when she meets Ray, her whole world changes. They fall in love and when fate intervenes, it changes the course of their marriage forever. Their love moved them to different…
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Elizabeth Macneal is back with a follow up to her 2019 novel The Doll Factory. Though not a sequel, Circus of Wonders treads familiar ground in weaving another Victorian era tale of entertainment, exploitation and obsession. While The Doll Factory used as its setting the Great Exhibition, Circus of Wonders, as its title suggests, uses the travelling circus….
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Not the typical Hollywood star, it stands to reason that Sharon Stone‘s The Beauty of Living Twice isn’t the typical Hollywood memoir either. For starters, it’s beautifully written. Candid and conversational, it is at times lyrical and evocative, at others harrowing and heartbreaking. Revelations of childhood abuse, Hollywood toxicity, and the agony of recovery sit…
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Imagine reading Picnic at Hanging Rock at the same time as The Handmaid’s Tale, and you’ll get somewhere close to understanding the experience of Phoebe Wynne‘s debut novel, Madam. This is the story of Rose, a twenty-six year old classics teacher who is plucked from obscurity (or, from teaching at public schools) and made the head of the…
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“This is a trans story. But it is also my story.” So says this powerful quote from Kaya Wilson’s memoir: As Beautiful as Any Other. Written as a personal record of his own experiences with both the medical profession and the world, beginning the day Kaya began to question his gender, As Beautiful as Any Other is a powerful…
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Established back in 1992 to support Shepparton writers, The Furphy Literary Award decided to expand its reach in 2020, opening its doors to unpublished short stories from writers across Australia. Inspired by Joseph Furphy, author of Australian classic Such Is Life, and the yarns told around his brother’s foundry, writers are encouraged to offer up…
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Cartoonist Chris Gooch manages to pack a lot into this page-turning dystopian graphic novel. Under-Earth follows two sets of prisoners as they struggle to survive in the subterranean landfill prison of Delforge. Gooch’s story is a commentary on everything from capitalism, materialism, and prison culture to revenge, forgiveness, loneliness, and friendship. The story begins with…
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Dreckly Jones lives by one core rule. Don’t be a hero. She wouldn’t have lived this long without it – and as a 140-something year old sprite that shouldn’t have existed in the first place, that’s no mean feat. But when a group of supernatural beings come to her, begging for help, her resolve is…
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Melissa Manning may be based in Melbourne now, but her connection to Tasmania resounds strongly throughout the stories in her debut collection, Smokehouse. Told in the form of nine interlinked tales, the book follows the lives of a number of residents of a small Tasmanian coastal town. At the centre (and also bookending the collection) is…
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In Heartsick, journalist and assistant head of content at Mammamia, Jessie Stephens goes undercover in search of the truth about heartbreak. Inspired by her own relationship breakdown and a search for a “book that [she was] fairly certain [didn’t] exist” which could “put into words how [she was] feeling”, this debut work of narrative non fiction looks…
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