Books

Science fiction and fantasy writer Maria V. Snyder dropped not one, but TWO books this year – Chasing the Shadows, the second in the Sentinels of the Galaxy series, and the (currently) Australia-only The Eyes of Tamburah! We were lucky enough to grab five minutes with the prolific author to chat about her latest work! Let’s…

In partnership with Wooden Horse, award winning production company Aquarius Films has optioned Matt Okine‘s Being Black ‘N Chicken & Chips. Aquarius Films have lent their expertise to the Academy Award nominated Lion, upcoming Tim Winton adaptation, Dirt Music, and Stan comedy series The Other Guy, alongside Okine and Wooden Horse. Okine’s debut novel draws on the…

Award-winning author Margaret Atwood will be making her way down to Australia early next year for a series of ‘In Conversation’ events across the country. Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam Trilogy. Her 1985…

Angela Savage may be best known for her Jayne Keeney PI novels, or for her role as the Director of Writer’s Victoria, but in Mother of Pearl, she’s serving something different. Celebrating Savage’s love of Thai culture and customs, Mother of Pearl is a sensitive exploration of the issue of overseas surrogacy, told from multiple points of view,…

Recognised as one of the great art capitals of the world, Paris can be a little daunting for the casual art lover. The Louvre will likely be at the top of any visitor’s list, but once you’re done being captivated by the Mona Lisa’s elusive smile, where on earth do you head next? Do you…

You might be forgiven for thinking that there are echoes of the past in Meg Mundell’s newest novel, The Trespassers, as a boatload of British folk board a boat bound for Australia to escape overcrowing, unemployment and disease at home. Instead, it’s the not-too-distant future. Among the passengers are our three protagonists: Cleary, nine years old and…

Today the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher have announced the winners of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2019. These awards are given in recognition of the significant contribution literature, history and poetry make towards shaping our Australian identity. The Awards are presented across six categories:…

The Griffith Review is known for its rich collections of thought-provoking writing and picture stories. The 64th edition, The New Disruptors is no exception. It is a deep dive into the world of technological change, from the recesses of the dark web through to those new opportunities for change. This instalment is edited by Ashley…

In a surprising turn of events Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have been jointly awarded the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction for The Testaments and Girl, Woman, Other respectively. Whilst it is not the first time the prize has been awarded jointly, the rules were changed back in the 90’s to rule out such an occasion. But, cut to 2019…

Josephine Rowe‘s newest collection of short stories, Here Until August is a slim but beautiful looking collection. It’s striking blue and purple cover makes you want to pick it up. And you should, because what is inside is just as fascinating as out. It begins with the story “Glisk” (winner of the 2016 ABR/Elizabeth Jolley Prize)…

Long before The Ramones were co-opted for an ad, they were a punk band who appealed to suburbanite teens. Andrew Stafford was one such fan, which his memoir, Something to Believe In proves. Across the book’s pages he takes readers to rock ‘n’ roll high school, educating them on all matters of music and madness…

In 1806, after conquering Prussia with his armies, Napoleon Bonaparte led a procession into Berlin through the Brandenburg Gate. Watching in the crowd is an eighteen year old man named Johannes Meyer who will soon find himself swept up in the tide of history. Fortune is a novel which traces its way around the big…

Everyone in Edriast knows the role of Shadow is a death sentence. Tasked with serving the local lord, Rennard, Shadows spend their days in dangerously close proximity to one of five Relics, a powerful object worn by the reigning lord. The longer they spend around it, the weaker they become, until, one day, it takes…

Starting the process with more than 150 submissions, The Booker Prize has announced its 2019 shortlist, with six novels vying for one of the most coveted prizes in English literature. Open to writers of any nationality, the prize celebrates work published in the UK or Ireland, from the previous October to the coming end of…

Twenty-three hours a day. Forty-three years. Three men. A six-by-nine foot cell. These are the all important numbers that form the basis of Albert Woodfox‘s memoir Solitary, which covers one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history. This story is one that will enrage you so much you’ll want to throw the book at those…

With just a few short weeks until her debut YA fantasy hits bookstores, we were lucky enough to grab five minutes with Sydney author Bronwyn Eley, to chat about trilogy opener Relic, her writing process, and her ever growing TBR pile!   First things first – can you tell us a little bit about Relic and Kaylan,…

The unnamed narrator in Ruby Porter‘s Michael Gifkins Prize winning debut novel Attraction can’t seem to get her mind to focus. She and her girlfriend, Ilana, and her best friend, Ashi, are on a road trip to the narrator’s family beach house in New Zealand’s North Island. The trip is one of escape for our protagonist, but…

Canberra-based author Kathryn Hind‘s debut novel Hitch was published in June this year. The inaugural winner of the Penguin Literary Prize, Hitch tells the story of Amelia, a young woman of indeterminate age, who is hitchhiking her way to Melbourne. Her journey is an emotional one as well as a physical one, and throughout the book, there…

The year is 1926, and American model Lee Miller has arrived in Paris. Leaving behind a successful career at Vogue, she’s ready to take her place behind the camera, rather than in front of it. After convincing surrealist Man Ray to take her on as his assistant, she begins her education, but soon finds herself…

Rohan Wilson’s latest novel, Daughter of Bad Times is a novel with an extremely global outlook, but this may just be its problem. The novel follows two protagonists, Rin Braden and Yamaan Ali Umair, two lovers from very different circumstances. Rin is the daughter of Alessandra Braden, the CEO of Cabey-Yasuda Corrections, a company which owns…

Brisbane based writer Melissa Lucashenko has been awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Too Much Lip, beating out five other shortlisted works to the $60,000 prize. Lucashenko’s win makes her the third Indigenous author to take home the prize, alongside past winners Kim Scott and Alexis Wright. Published by UQP, Too Much Lip follows…

The Miles Franklin Literary Award will be announced later today, and we’re slipping one last nominee interview in before the big reveal! This time, we’re chatting to Jennifer Mills, author of Dyschronia! Congratulations on making the Miles Franklin shortlist! What was it like to hear the news? Thank you! It was and is wonderful: to feel…

The town that makes up the main setting of Tony Birch’s new novel The White Girl is a fictional one, but it could have been anywhere in Australia. The novel tells the story of Odette Brown, an Indigenous woman who was raised on the mission in Deane separated from her family, and in particular her father. She lives on…

Author Rodney Hall is a two time Miles Franklin winner, and his latest book, A Stolen Season, has seen him snap up a third nomination this year. We caught up with him for a quickfire interview, ahead of the announcement of the winner next week! First of all, congratulations on the nomination! What was it…

We’re continuing our series of interviews with Miles Franklin nominees! With the winner announcement just around the corner, it’s now the the turn of Gregory Day, author of A Sand Archive! Congratulations on making the Miles Franklin shortlist! What was it like to hear the news? As you might imagine it felt satisfying for my work…

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor and teacher. He is also the founder and director of Sweatshop, a literary arts collective based in Western Sydney that helps develop work by culturally diverse writers. He is also the award winning author of The Tribe and his most recent work, The Lebs, which has been…

The longlist for the 2019 Booker Prize is out, but readers will have to wait a little while to pick up copies of a few of the contenders, with books such as The Testaments not due out until September 2019. This list, hotly anticipated by bibliophiles everywhere, is notoriously difficult to predict, and 2019 is…

Pioneering French filmmaker Claude Ballard has lived at the Hotel Knickerbocker for almost half a century. It’s a quiet existence, by Hollywood hotel standards at least, and Claude fills his days taking photographs and keeping an eye on the hotel’s more vulnerable residents. But when an enthusiastic young film student arrives, keen to discover the…

A suburban family finds a prehistoric egg. A lonely woman aids a fallen angel. An American woman plots to take the Parisian honey industry by storm. These are just a few of the moments captured in Bindy Pritchard‘s stunning short story collection Fabulous Lives. Curious, yet always relatable, Pritchard’s vignettes are filled with the sort of…

After a terrifying clash with the enemy in the Havennesse mountains, our gang of rebels and Valian warriors have headed back to Queen Eydis’ castle to regroup and plan for the war ahead. But with Bleak’s head still reeling from revelations about her past, and the captive they planned to use as leverage against Ines…