Caryota Book Exchange

15/05/2026

THE BOOKLIST

Evening all,

Stan Grant’s latest book, When Words Fail Us, emerged from a series of lectures he delivered last year. Typically, he ranges far and wide in a tick over 100 pages. So it’s a short book that delivers his customary care and concern for the world, the soul, language, family, faith and community. And the need “to still the noise”.

You can read Declan Fry’s chat with him below. Towards the end of the piece, Grant says the best writing sits “in a space just out of the corner of your eye”, which reminds me somewhat of Emily Dickinson’s “Tell all the truth but tell it slant … The Truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind”.

Grant tells Fry that everything he writes is about his father, Wiradjuri elder Stan Grant snr, and anyone who has read his previous book, Murriyang: Song of Time, out of which these lectures seem to have emerged, will have been left in no doubt as to the central role his father has played in his life.

In that earlier book, he asserts that “the so-called modern world has stripped our souls of wonder and awe; logic and reason are poor substitutes for mystery and mysticism”.

One of the things I found so fascinating in Murriyang was how Grant wrote about being a Wiradjuri man and what that means to him, and about his deep Christian faith: “I call myself a Christian because, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I find the full expression of love, mercy and grace. I find the fulfilment of the sacred majesty of my people.”

As he puts it later, “Christ was considered an ancestor: his suffering and crucifixion were an allegory for our plight – his lesson of forgiveness we recognised as the essence of Yindyamarra [the Wiradjuri way of contemplating God]” .

When I discussed the book with Grant at last year’s Sorrento Writers Festival, one of the most absorbing and moving chats I have had with an author, I put it to him that it was two fathers that he was exercised and nurtured by in his writing and his life − Grant snr, and Baiyamme (God).

One of the guests at next week’s Sydney Writer’s Festival, albeit it by video link, is Florence Knapp, the author of The Names, one of the most acclaimed first novels of recent years. It is about how the choice of a name can have a profound impact on the course of a life.

In Madeleine Gray’s interview with her, you can learn about how she spent a few years in Australia as a child and how that influenced − many years later − the writing of the novel. But what’s great is to have two novelists discussing their work. (Gray is the author of the much praised Green Dot and Chosen Family.)

They agree that painful childhood memories for fiction writers have to be hoarded for decades before proving useful. And they share their ambivalent feelings about moving into the public eye: “It’s a peculiar feeling as a debut novelist to start seeing nuggets of information about yourself accruing on the internet,” writes Gray, to which Knapp replies: “A fact file of your life gradually appears.”

Clearly the two had a lot in common, although Gray confesses “I am basking in the relative safety of my role today; it is a relief to be the interviewer rather than the interviewee”. I recommend both their novels.

If The Names was one of those books that had masses of word of mouth even before publication − I remember one bookseller enthusing about it several months before publication − another is Nelio Biedermann’s Lazar, which was published here a few weeks ago in a translation from the German by Jamie Bulloch.

It’s about the decline and fall of an aristocratic Hungarian family from the days of the Hapsburg Empire’s imperial pomp through to the dismal outcome of the 1956 uprising. Biedermann is also one of those shockingly precocious writers (for anyone older than him, that is) – he started the novel when he was 16, finished it at 21 and at 23 is now studying at the University of Zurich (German and film studies, according to his bio in the book).

I can see why the comparison has been made to Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March and other novels from central European writers, and Lazar has been a big bestseller in Germany. According to The New York Times, it is “thrillingly unburdened by conventional stylistic constraints. The story jumps in time, switches tenses and swaps point of view mid-paragraph. Nobody’s inner thoughts are off limits, even those of Stalin on his deathbed … It’s an audacious approach to portraying a chaotic era when any stable sense of past, present and future has fallen away and nothing can be taken for granted.”

Finally, is there any more we can learn about another family of aristocrats, the Mitfords? A couple of the sisters − Nancy, Unity, Deborah, Jessica and Pamela − wrote their own books. Others, many others, have written about them and then there have been TV shows, adaptations, crime novels based on them, a musical, and more.

Nancy’s novels, notably Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, are delicious, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Jessica – aka Decca – whose Hons and Rebels is a memoir of how she took a very different political direction from some of her family, eloped to Spain during the civil war with her cousin when she was still in her teens, then lived most her life in the US where she joined the communist party, was a social and political activist and wrote books such as The American Way of Death. I was chuffed when I picked up a first edition of H&R in a secondhand bookshop a few years ago.

All this is to say that there is a new and extensive biography of this formidable woman by Carla Kaplan, which The Spectator describes as “engaging and revelatory”.

Kaplan says she put the spotlight on Decca’s unlikely choices in a larger context, and “this biography demonstrates not only what Decca’s remarkable self-transformation cost her − all that she gave up to join the social struggle − but equally important what that transformation from aristocrat to activist brought her in return, and why she always felt the exchange worked so strongly in her favor”.

As always, there’s plenty to read, and I wish you happy reading − whatever it is and wherever you are.

Jason Steger
Jason Steger

Literary journalist

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24/04/2026

Sydney Morning Herald - The Booklist

My reaction to the news that David Malouf had died on Wednesday was one of great sadness because he was lovely, kind man − a gentleman. And also one of great gratitude because over the years he gave us so many wonderful works – novels, short stories, essays, libretti and poetry – that will remain essential to any understanding of Australian literature.

His final novel, Ransom, was published in 2009, but Malouf continued writing the poetry with which he began his career as a published author. His last collection, An Open Book, came out in 2018. It was only his third new collection in about 40 years.

Ransom, which he called “a meditative novel” like his brilliant An Imaginary Life, about the poet Ovid, is a sort of riff on The Iliad and rather different from the recent one by Yann Martel. It imagines a grief-stricken King Priam undergoing a transformative journey as he seeks to retrieve the body of his son Hector from the Greek warrior Achilles, who has slain him and dragged him round the walls of Troy in revenge for the killing of his lover, Patroclus.

Malouf had been fascinated with the siege of Troy from the age of 10, when he was read The Iliad at West End State School in Brisbane by his teacher, Elma Finlay, whom he recalled years later with affection. It had real resonance for him which, he said, was what great stories did: “When it was told to me, it seemed to be about the world I was living in, in 1943 during that war, when the Japanese were supposed to be coming, and we were all waiting for a highly fortified and occupied defensive city to fall. It seemed personal.”

He told me that when I interviewed him in his then home in Sydney’s Chippendale. He wrote by hand with a fountain pen at a table by the first-floor windows of his terrace before typing up the manuscript.

Johnno, set in the wartime Brisbane where Malouf had grown up, was his first novel, and he had a lot of trouble with it; he was too self-conscious of his writing and aware of the figure of a putative reader.

“You would think that someone who had already written a lot of autobiographical poems would know that. The prose, it seemed to me, needed to be clever or impressive or elaborate in some kind of way. It was only when I gave that up that I could actually write the book.”

But Malouf was not engaged by conventional plot in his stories and novels. What drove him was the need to dramatise a situation, which is very different. “There’s a story that develops by association rather than logic and that’s the sort of structure I’m interested in.”

He was an avid reader early on and for his 12th birthday, he told me, he had received Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They had great influence on him, but perhaps not in the way that was anticipated by the adults who gave them as presents.

“Those books are just absolutely erotic playgrounds of the most extraordinary kind. Because in the 19th century when you couldn’t speak directly about s*x everything got s*xualised.”

That taught him that unlike the safe world he had been presented with by school and parents, there were people leading a life that was amazingly passionate, violent and dangerous. “And that’s what a 12-year-old boy wants to hear.”

When the poet and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Luke Davies reviewed Typewriter Music for The Age in 2007 (it was Malouf’s first poetry collection in 25 years) he wrote: “There is the feeling that we are in the hands of someone who knows both his sculpture and his architecture, poetically speaking. But in its deceptive simplicity and innovative joinery, Malouf’s latest poetry resembles nothing so much as Shaker furniture − sturdy, elegant, deeply functional, restful to the eye and mind − and radiant because of rather than despite that simplicity.”

When he appeared on ABC TV’s The Book Club to discuss the novel to which he was most devoted, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, he said he tried to read it almost every year.

A few years ago he wrote about his cultural turning points in The Age.
He described Moby-Dick as “an anthology, in short, of man’s meeting with man, with the animal kingdom; of nature and its use (or misuse) in what was then America’s largest industry; of man’s meeting with the divine. All in a language of the highest eloquence and at times of the most mischievous, sometimes erotic, sometimes blasphemous play.”

Malouf was a modest giant in Australian literature. He had a long life and his work will last for a very long time.

The appointment of Rosemarie Milsom as the new director of Adelaide Writers Week draws a final line under the fiasco that led to the cancellation of this year’s event, the resignation of director Louise Adler, and the eventual establishment of a new board. Milsom is the founding director and vice-chair of Newcastle Writers Festival, which made its debut in 2013.

Adelaide collapsed after Randa Abdel-Fattah was “disinvited” from this year’s festival. Milsom, who had also invited the Palestinian Australian academic and author to Newcastle, held fast despite the opposition of NSW Premier Chris Minns. After all, the whole point of writers festivals is for ideas, even those you may disagree with, to be discussed in a safe and respectful environment.

Ann Mossop, artistic director of next month’s Sydney Writers’ Festival, also has Abdel-Fattah in her program, discussing Discipline, her first novel for adults (she has written stacks for young readers), and appearing on a panel titled Silenced: A Critical Dialogue About the Things We aren’t Allowed to Say, But Do.

Milsom told my colleagues Linda Morris and Kerrie O’Brien, in a more expansive story that you can read below, that she didn’t believe in cancelling artists and that she was “committed to freedom of expression within the limits of the law”.

And she told ABC Radio National this morning that no literary festival director went out of their way to be especially controversial with their programming. What happened was commentators, certain sections of the media, and certain politicians whipped it up into a frenzy, and that was very politically oriented, and was not the approach of the people putting those programs together.

You may remember the tragic death of Hachette Australia boss Matt Richell back in 2014. He drowned in a surfing accident at Sydney’s Tamarama beach. Yesterday the prize for emerging writers that was launched in 2015 in his memory opened again for submissions.

Unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction are eligible. Unlike other such prizes, there is no age limit and you don’t have to have a complete manuscript ready. But you need a synopsis and the intention to finish the manuscript. You can find more details about it here.

The winner will get $10,000 in prize money, and a one-year mentorship with a Hachette publisher. The first winner was Sally Abbott for Closing Down, which Kerryn Goldsworthy described in her review in the Herald and Age as “a polished, accomplished, imaginative novel set in a very near future, in which rural Australian towns are being literally abolished by a remote and centralised federal government, driven by the monocular, neo-liberal focus on money”.

Last year the prize, which had more than 750 entries, was won by Croatian Australian writer and theatre-maker Monique Marani for The Sweeter, which is set between Bosnia and Australia in the 1990s.

Finally, I should point out that last week’s One Great Sentence from Georges Simenon’s Maigret in Vichy was originally written in French. The translator, whose name was omitted, was Ros Schwartz.

I wish you happy reading − whatever it is and wherever you are. (I hope this Anzac Day weekend, you’ll decide to read something by David Malouf.)

Jason Steger
Jason Steger

Literary journalist

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24/04/2026

Open today Anzac Day till 1pm!
Lest We Forget

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18/04/2026

Evening all,

Perhaps more than any other writer, the work and life of Oscar Wilde have continued to fascinate people long after his death. He died in Paris in November 1900 and there remains an enduring interest in the highs and lows of his life as well as appreciation for his prose and his plays. And, of course, his wit.

Among our reviews this week, you’ll find one of A Concise Compendium of Wonder in which Ursula Dubosarsky reworks one of Wilde’s famous fairy stories, The Selfish Giant. And I’m sure many of you will have seen Kip Williams’ adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which has been one of the great recent successes on the Australian (and international) stage.

There are films about Wilde, and books galore, as there have been since 1902 when his friend Robert Sherard published the first biography (and wrote several other books about him). And still they come, some more interesting than others.

Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, tells the story of his mother, Thelma Holland (née Besant), a Melburnian and a beauty adviser to Queen Elizabeth II, embarking on a year-long trip home to Australia in the late 1940s to promote the international cosmetics company Cyclax, for which she worked, and stage a series of fashion shows. She was accompanied by her husband, Vyvyan, and the young Merlin.

Vyvyan found it a liberating experience. He was described in the Australian press as a gourmet and a well-known translator of French into English. But more significantly, he was noted as the only surviving son of Oscar Wilde. (His elder brother, Cyril, had been killed in World War I.)

In his new book, After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal, published here a couple of months ago, Merlin writes at length about Wilde’s “very real posthumous existence”. On that big trip, “unlike the British press around that time, which was always ready to remind its public of the reasons for Wilde’s downfall, the Australians managed to put Vyvyan at ease by concentrating on the positive and literary side of his father rather than on his personal failings.”

Merlin says it was the start of his father coming to terms with the trauma of his family history, and it enabled Vyvyan to write his memoir, Son of Oscar Wilde, which was published in 1954, the 100th anniversary of Oscar’s birth.

Towards the end of the book Vyvyan writes, “On the whole my life has been one of concealment and repression. My descendants will not suffer as I have done, as they become more and more remote from the actual tragedy.”

Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labour after being convicted of gross indecency in 1895, and according to Vyvyan “the spark of genius in him was extinguished by prison life”, although he did allow for the quality of his father’s later works, De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Vyvyan reckoned most of the many books written up to 1954 treated Wilde “like a beetle under a microscope … not as a human being at all … And yet the most outstanding aspect of my father’s character was his great humanity, his love of life and of his fellow-men and his sympathy with suffering. He was the kindest and gentlest of men …”

Merlin describes After Oscar as a book of “revelations” that attacks hypocrisy in many forms over more than 100 years. He distinguishes between Vyvyan’s book and his own, saying the latter had been written “with a modicum of anger, channelled into storytelling” in its search for truth that has “led to some uncomfortable discoveries about my immediate family”.

Indeed, he says parts of Vyvyan’s book owed more to Vyvyan’s imagination than to reality. Merlin is also critical of his mother and her whitewashing of Wilde’s s*xuality and the burning of some of her husband’s diaries.

After Oscar deals quickly with the death of Wilde and that of his wife, Constance, who died three years earlier, moving on to assess the period up to the World War I and the tensions between his two sons, resolved to a degree a year before Cyril was killed.

Merlin scrutinises books such as Arthur Ransome’s critical study of Wilde − which resulted in Ransome being sued for libel by Wilde’s former lover, Lord Alfred (Bosie) Douglas − as well as Vyvyan’s memoir, later works such as Rupert Hart-Davis’ editions of Wilde’s letters and Richard Ellmann’s acclaimed biography.

Ellmann, he notes, had to deal with Holland’s mother, the “nightmare executrix”, but also chronicles his disagreement with the American biographer over his theory that Wilde had died of tertiary syphilis. Merlin argues Ellmann had no substantial evidence for this and that cerebral meningitis was the cause of death.

He also discusses his disappointment with the film Wilde, which starred Stephen Fry and was written by Julian Mitchell, and its “silly and avoidable inaccuracies”, and explains why he turned down the role of consultant to it. He concedes he has warmed to it since its initial release, but nevertheless rates Rupert Everett’s 2018 film, The Happy Prince, as “truer to the facts and far more moving as a depiction of the man”.

And Merlin’s conclusion? “I’ve often said my grandfather caused more trouble after his death than he did in his lifetime.” If you are one of the many still intrigued by the Wilde legacy, Merlin’s wide-ranging and scrupulously researched book makes for fascinating reading.

Finally, the Global Book Crawl begins on Monday. Last year’s inaugural crawl was an initiative of Spanish bookseller Federico Lang and this year thousands of bookshops around the globe are participating, including more than 150 in Australia. As the organisers say: “More bookshops, more cities, more languages connected by one simple idea: reading is also about encounter and community.”

According to Mark Rubbo of Readings, who along with Jaye Chin-Dusting from Mary Martin Books has organised the Australian Crawl (feeble joke there), it’s all about people discovering and connecting with the bookshops in their neighbourhoods.

The idea is you collect a passport from one of the participating shops (listed at globalbookcrawl.org) and then start your crawl, collecting stamps from other bookshops along the way. Once you have five stamps you are entitled to a free audiobook from Libro.fm. If you buy a Penguin book, you will receive a pack of the publisher’s Persona cards, and there are other rewards to be had.

So if you’re in Alice Springs or Newcastle, Tasmania or Perth and many other places around the country, get those passports stamped.

I wish you happy and peaceful reading − whatever it is and wherever you are.

Jason Steger
Jason Steger

Literary journalist -
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
THE BOOKLIST

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28/03/2026

For Susannah Bowen, CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association, the case for bookshops is both cultural and economic and far more substantial than their modest footprint might suggest. “Bookshops are amazing,” Bowen told Inside Retail. “They drive literacy and passion for reading, they function as community gathering spaces that enable social connection, they sustain Australian stories, and they create knowledge economy jobs. They are doing a lot of heavy lifting for culture and education.”

25/03/2026

Adult Fiction Top 10
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph)
Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate Books)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Penguin)
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth (Macmillan Australia)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin Random House)
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (Tinder Press)
On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas (Hachette Australia)
A Far-flung Life by M.L. Steadman (Penguin Random House Australia)
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash (Doubleday)
The Names by Florence Knapp (Phoenix)
Adult Non-Fiction Top 10
Where It All Went Wrong by Amy Remeikis (Scribner Australia)
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton)
Year of Jewish Cooking by Monday Morning Cooking Club (Simon & Schuster)
Where the Light Gets In by Ben Crowe (HarperCollins)
A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot (The Bodley Head Ltd)
Luna Park by Helen Pitt (Allen & Unwin)
Nobody's Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre (Doubleday)
Bring Back Yesterday by Bob Carr (Allen & Unwin)
A World Appears by Michael Pollan (Allen Lane)
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins & Sawyer Robbins (Hay House)

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27/02/2026

Paul McManus is co-owner of Collins Booksellers Tamworth, Tamworth, NSW.

Love him or not, Peter FitzSimons does write a good story and in The Courageous Life of Weary Dunlop he has picked one of Australia’s heroes and national treasures. With a brief outline of Dunlop’s early life and university days, together with his rugby union prowess as a Wallaby, FitzSimons gets into the meat of the story: Weary’s time as an army surgeon and the Thai-Burma Railway and all the horrors of captivity. Admiration for Weary Dunlop will be an understatement after reading FitzSimons’ account of his life.

Garry Disher is a master of outback crime. Mischance Creek is set in the drought-stricken mid-north of South Australia and the reader can taste the dust and feel the corrugations of the back roads of the bush. While this is another book in the Constable Paul Hirschhausen series, it stands on its own. There are various story threads as Hirsch, as he’s known to his friends, tends to those under his protection while pursuing those who transgress.
People often marvel at the bright stars of the night when leaving cities and their accompanying light pollution that hides the night sky. In Nightfaring, Megan Eaves-Egenes scours the globe seeking out its darkest hidden corners to find meaning in her own life. Darkness is often perceived as hiding danger and the unknown but by embracing it and the communities encountered, she finds friendships and a way to heal at a time of difficulty.

Although Ian Kemish is Australian, Two Islands is set on an isolated Scottish island where he has strong family ties. Drawing on his experiences as a senior diplomat and advisor to a prime minister, the story is of a young man hiding from those who would silence him because of what he has witnessed in the Balkan War. Kemish compassionately draws together distant conflicts and their impacts closer to home.

The Age, The Booklist 23 February

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27/02/2026

Podcast alert: The Book Club
From Goalhanger, the production company behind hit podcasts including The Rest Is Entertainment, The Rest Is History and The Rest Is Politics, comes The Book Club, hosted by historian and author Dominic Sandbrook alongside The Rest Is History producer Tabitha Syrett.

Originally released as members-only episodes within The Rest Is History, The Book Club is now a weekly series exploring classic and modern books. Each episode focuses on a single title, examining its themes, context and lasting impact, and ends with a ranking that encourages listeners to revisit old favourites or discover something new.

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06/02/2026

Overall Top 10 Bookbuyer Picks:

Where the Light Gets In by Ben Crowe (HarperCollins Publishers)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph)
Departure(s) by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape)
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth (Macmillan Australia)
Arnott's The Cookbook (AWW Cookbooks)
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton)
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Little Brown)
Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape)
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (Tinder Press)
A Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin Random House)

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06/02/2026

BookPeople February highlights The best books as chosen by Australia’s leading booksellers Adult Fiction:

In a Common Hour Sita Walker Ultimo Press TPB $34.99
Inside Parks State High, the staffroom is teeming with gossip, shared experiences and burnt-out teachers. Paul Bush, beloved teacher, is at the centre of this. One disgruntled student, one lunchtime, and Bushie’s life is changed forever. A look into the ways we are connected that will resonate with everyone who has sat behind—or in front of—a desk in school.

Vigil George Saunders Bloomsbury Publishing TPB $32.99
From the Booker Prizer author, George Saunders, comes a new novel following an oil company CEO in the twilight hours of his life. When Jill Blaine crashes down to earth for the 343rd time, to accompany him into the afterlife, she finds a man who believes he has nothing to regret. Providing commentary on the biggest issues of our time, Saunders offers an insightful look into mortality and morality.

Good People Patmeena Sabit Little Brown TPB $34.99
Arriving in America as refugees, the Sharaf family work hard to pursue the American dream – and they find it. Living in the most exclusive neighbourhood, their children attending prestigious schools. That is until eldest daughter Zorah dies in an unthinkable tragedy. Led by the chorus of people surrounding the Sharafs, we examine what happened to Zorah in a reflection of modern society where public opinion is fraught.

Bu**er Michael Mohammed Ahmad Hachette Australia TPB $34.99
Miles Franklin shortlisted author, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, brings a poignant and tender new novel in the form of Bu**er. Ten-year-old Hamoodi has learnt lessons from the mother-land: to be quiet, to be unseen, to trust no one except family. In a new place, being bullied in school, these lessons are tested. In one day, Hamoodi will see that family is complicated and trust can be broken beyond repair.

Adult Non-Fiction

Things That Disappear Jenny Erpenbeck, transl. by Kurt Beals Granta PB $26.99 From the 2024 International Booker Prize winner comes a collection of essays reflecting on the disappearance of places, people and memories. Whether recalling the demolition of familiar places, the loss of a friendship, or a change in social attitudes, German writer Jenny Erpenbeck explores impermanence with sharp insight, vivid detail, and a nuanced view of her country’s history, giving these brief pieces lasting resonance.

Half His Age Jennette McCurdy 4th Estate TPB $32.99 From the bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died, comes McCurdy’s highly anticipated debut novel that will shock and captivate you from the very first line. Waldo endlessly wants, and what she wants most of all is her creative writing teacher. This intimate look into desire explores the complexities of a relationship built on power imbalances and the intense seeking of validation, and will create important discussion between readers.

Where the Light Gets In Ben Crowe HarperCollins TPB $35.99 Do you ever feel uncertain, stressed by others’ expectations, or unsure of your direction? You’re not alone. Globally renowned mindset coach, Ben Crowe, has guided many of the world’s top athletes, teams, and leaders, and his book offers a transformative shift in how you see yourself and your life. Even small changes in perspective can spark major breakthroughs—helping you redefine success and live with greater authenticity.

Iluka Cassie Stroud HQ Fiction TPB $32.99 An accomplished debut novel that untangles familial relationships and the generationslong secrets we keep. Gathered at the beach house they grew up in, after their grandfather’s death, siblings f ind secrets in the form of hidden letters from their estranged mother. For readers who are moved by Charlotte Wood and Anne Tyler, Cassie Stroud’s powerful character-driven novel will give you pause to reflect and resonate.

My Cursed Va**na Lally Katz Allen & Unwin TPB $34.99 When a soothsayer tells Lally Katz her va**na is cursed, she begins documenting her life as she searches for love and meaning. My Cursed Va**na follows her through disastrous dates, candid friendships, unexpected marriage, motherhood, illness, and the strange gifts that come with it. Blending magical realism with raw autobiographical insight, Katz’s memoir captures the strangeness, hope and vulnerability of being human.

Adult Non-Fiction

When Books Go Bad Alex Johnson British Library Publishing HB $29.99 The literary world isn’t just bestsellers—it’s full of feuds, mistakes, and mishaps. Writers have battled on the page and in person for centuries, often with regretful or even deadly results. Books themselves can go wrong too: stolen, misprinted, censored, cursed, or oddly bound. When Books Go Bad explores these blunders with a lighthearted look at bad editing, bad judgement, and bad behaviour.

Childrens & YA

Red Star Rebels Amie Kaufman A & U Children PB $24.99 In 2067, handsome, privileged Hunter and sharp-witted stowaway Cleo find themselves stranded together on a Mars station that’s been secretly taken over. They have just eight hours to save themselves and everyone else before disaster strikes. With plenty of unexpected twists and lots of heart, teen readers will find this high-octane, high-chemistry, sci-fi adventure hard to put down.

The Sunbird Sara Haddad and Baraa Awoor (illus) UQP PB $14.99 Set in 1948 Palestine, this gentle but powerful story follows young Nabila, whose happy life of olive trees and hillside play is shattered when her family is forced to flee their village. This young readers edition from Sara Haddad captures a child’s longing for safety and home. A moving introduction to big ideas about loss, resilience, and belonging.

Afterthoughts Richard Ayoade Faber PB $24.99 Richard Ayoade packs 500 witty insights into brief, deadpan reflections— from proposing a “Yes, I am a robot” checkbox, to noting that a door opening by itself means your house is haunted or just badly built… Mixing philosophical nods with dry humour, Afterthoughts offers sharp, quirky observations that make thinking feel optional.

Chocolate All Day Kirsten Tibballs Murdoch Books HB $49.99 The recipes in this book offer simple, impressive chocolate creations from expert chocolatier, Kirsten Tibballs. Chocolate All Day features easy, crowd-pleasing treats—from babka knots to rocky road cake—arranged by texture, with tips for troubleshooting, elevating each bake, and building confidence in your skills. It’s always the right time for chocolate!

Valerie: Australia’s Bravest Sausage Dog Lucinda Gifford Albert Street Books | HB $19.99 Based on a true story, this is a warm, funny, picture book about a tiny dog with a very big heart. When a camping trip goes wrong, a brave little dachshund disappears into the Australian bush, sparking a huge search and capturing the nation’s attention. Lucinda Gifford has imagined Valerie’s adventures and brought them to vivid and hilarious life, as she explores the wilds before finding her way safely home again.

WANTED: The Cutest Baby in the World Davina Bell and Sarah Zweck (illus) T hames & Hudson Australia | HB $24.99 A detective turns up at the door of two exhausted parents, hunting a notorious criminal: the cutest baby in the world. The list of crimes will feel very familiar; silly voices, ruined nap times, yoghurt everywhere, and a house turned upside down. Funny, affectionate, and spot-on about early parenthood, with plenty for adults to laugh at while little ones will enjoy the playful chaos. A joy to read aloud and share.

Silverbrook: Yumna and the Golden Horse Yassmin AbdelMagied Hodder Children’s Books PB $16.99 In a quiet town where nothing much ever happens, thirteen-year-old Yumna suddenly finds magic all around her. When her friends start showing strange powers, from turning into a golden horse to touching fire, Yumna can’t help but dig deeper. But when one of them goes missing and a mysterious family arrives, she’s the one who must piece together what’s really going on.

Bush Tukka Guide for Kids Samantha Martin Hardie Grant Explore PB $24.99 This bright, practical guide invites kids to explore Australia’s bush foods with curiosity and respect. Drawing on knowledge passed down to the author by her mother and Aboriginal Elders, it mixes stories, simple survival skills, plant facts, and hands-on activities. Young readers will learn what’s edible, what’s useful, and how to grow their own bush tukka, with kid-friendly recipes to try at home.