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The Easy Way Out (Steven Amsterdam, Hachette)

Released September 2016

Steven Amsterdam’s previous books Things We Didn’t See Coming and What the Family Needed are heavy with apocalyptic vision and metaphor, so his latest novel will immediately strike his fans... Read more

The Historian’s Daughter (Rashida Murphy, UWA Publishing)

Released September 2016

The Historian’s Daughter is a family story with a dark secret in its underbelly, cloaked by an otherworldly charm, where the traditional monikers of mum and dad are replaced with... Read more

The Hate Race (Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hachette)

Released August 2016

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s storytelling in The Hate Race has a heft to it that is at once steeped in history, and also exquisitely and playfully modern; it is lyrical, sincere... Read more

The Love of a Bad Man (Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Scribe)

Released September 2016

The Love of a Bad Man offers what feels like a genuinely fresh reading experience: a short-fiction collection that marries true crime with literary fiction. In each discrete story, Melbourne-based... Read more

The Near and the Far (ed by David Carlin & Francesca Rendle-Short, Scribe)

Released September 2016

Born out of WrICE—a program of reciprocal residencies focussed on writing from the Asia-Pacific—The Near and the Far interlaces the work of familiar Australian writers with that of emerging and... Read more

Only Daughter (Anna Snoekstra, Harlequin)

Released September 2016

This slow-burning psychological thriller will appeal to anyone devouring the subgenre dubbed ‘domestic noir’. While it’s a quicker, lighter read than Gone Girl, Only Daughter poses a mystery that is... Read more

The Rules of Backyard Cricket (Jock Serong, Text)

Released September 2016

When infamous ex-cricketer Darren Keefe wakes up bound and gagged in the boot of a car, he begins reflecting on the life that led him there. Drugs, sex, booze, gangland... Read more

Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (Melina Marchetta, Viking)

Released September 2016

Outside Calais, a bomb tears apart a bus full of international teenage students. The uninjured include British ex-Chief Inspector Bish Ortley’s daughter Bee and 17-year-old Violette Zidane, the youngest member... Read more

We. Are. Family (Paul Mitchell, MidnightSun)

Released September 2016

Paul Mitchell’s debut novel is the rare book that seems to both invite every clichéd description of new Australian writing—visceral, lyrical, ‘ Wintonesque’—and somehow read as genuinely innovative. This is... Read more

Wild Island (Jennifer Livett, A&U)

Released September 2016

Jennifer Livett’s first novel interweaves Tasmanian colonial history with the untold periphery of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, assuming background knowledge of neither (though the reader is certainly rewarded by familiarity... Read more

Doing It: Women Tell the Truth about Great Sex (ed by Karen Pickering, UQP)

Released September 2016

Fucking, boning, rooting, getting laid, making love, banging, shagging—there are a lot of phrases we can use to refer to sex. ‘Doing it’ is Karen Pickering’s favourite, and it is... Read more

Play On! The Hidden History of Women’s Australian Rules Football (Brunette Lenkic & Rob Hess, Echo Publishing)

Released September 2016

Play On! is a meticulously researched chronology of the genesis, evolution and trials of women’s footy. The sport has long been buried beneath the budget and reverence of men’s football,... Read more

The Great Multinational Tax Rort (Martin Feil, Scribe)

Released September 2016

Martin Feil has over 20 years’ experience in advising multinational companies and the Australian Tax Office. In this timely book, Feil argues that the tax minimisation practices of multinational companies... Read more

Why the Future is Workless (Tim Dunlop, NewSouth)

Released September 2016

According to some of the best research, close to 50% of all jobs will be automated in the next 20 years. Whether these jobs will be replaced, as has happened... Read more

Wool Away, Boy! A Ripping Memoir of Life in the Shearing Sheds (Alan Blunt, William Heinemann)

Released September 2016

‘The traditional shearer’s campfire yarning, joking, chiacking and debating over politics, general news, women, sport and family were morphing from culture to folklore,’ writes Alan Blunt. It’s a change that... Read more

Celeste (Roland Perry, ABC Books)

Released September 2016

This is the 30th book from Roland Perry, who is well known for his books on Australian military history and cricket. Its subject is a courtesan who lived in Paris... Read more

The Invisible War: A Tale on Two Scales (Ailsa Wild & Jeremy Barr, illus by Ben Hutchings, Scale Free Network)

the invisible war

Released July 2016

How much history and science can a reader learn from a graphic novel? This new art-science offering from publisher Scale Free Network suggests quite a lot! The Invisible War is... Read more

The Bone Sparrow (Zana Fraillon, Lothian)

The Bone Sparrow cover

Released July 2016

In a story that is in some ways reminiscent of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, author Zana Fraillon asks readers to imagine a ‘Someday’ better than today. It... Read more

Oh Albert! (Davina Bell, illus by Sara Acton, Viking)

Oh Albert cover

Released August 2016

Oh, Albert! is a captivating picture book about a mischievous pet dog called Albert, whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. The story follows a week in the life of... Read more

Princess Parsley (Pamela Rushby, Omnibus)

Princess Parsley cover

Released August 2016

Poor Parsley Patterson. As if it’s not hard enough starting high school, her dad decides to secede from Australia, making 12-year-old Parsley and her younger sisters (Sage, Rosemary and Thyme—the... Read more