International Non-Fiction Special Features

Year of the Monkey | Patti Smith | $29.99 | Bloomsbury

Patti Smith is a hero and icon to many. Her writing lights a fire in your soul. Just Kids is my all-time favourite read. M Train is equally spectacular. Now Smith’s third memoir is coming, continuing on with her poetic mastery and I just can’t wait. This covers one transformative year where Smith wanders alone, weaving through her own dreamscape. Her elegant writing shares the brilliant wit and wisdom of a shamanic mind, thinking and dreaming and looking towards building hope for the future.

— Dean

Three Women | Lisa Taddeo | $32.99 | Bloomsbury

I didn’t realise how urgent and necessary Taddeo’s work is until I was a couple of chapters in. These women’s stories are

raw, they are bleak, they are intense. They are liberating. They are sexy. If you, like me, have been rejoicing in the increased

publication of women writing honestly about womanhood and all the amazing, awful shit that comes with it, this needs

to be on your radar.

Like one intimate therapy session, Taddeo brings us right into the lives of three women, and unashamedly bares all –

exposing their fears, their desires, their shame – and it feels so transgressive, so brave, and so unlike any other book about

women I’ve ever read because it hit so close to home.

I found this book confronting, but it opened some much-needed conversations with myself and with other women — I

couldn’t help but bring my questions and anger to a dinner party after reading a new chapter… This book is an essential

read for those who refuse the female status quo.