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Hamish Hamilton PB WAS $34.99 NOW $29.99
Australian Stories ANY ORDINARY DAY Leigh Sales
The title comes from the days that end in tragedy – they often start out just like any other. So, asks journalist Leigh Sales, what happens after that ordinary day turns extraordinary in the worst way? How do people cope? What gives them comfort? What happens to their brains? Is there any meaning to be found in these awful events? To explore these questions, she talks to people directly affected by tragedies, as well as those who have supported others through tragedy. The result is a clear-sighted work of long-form personal journalism that challenges clichés, and gives us a profound insight into people’s resilience.
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Hamish Hamilton HB WAS $39.99 NOW $29.99 PB $34.99
Text HB $34.99
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Knopf HB WAS $39.99 NOW $34.99
GERMAINE Elizabeth Kleinhenz
Germaine Greer is a reluctant subject of biography. Fortunately, the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne holds a wealth of compelling evidence and documentation of her life. Elizabeth Kleinhenz delved into this collection and has emerged with a comprehensive view of Greer’s life, tracing the origins and progressions of her ideas, and the various personas she has cultivated as an academic, provocateur, actor, feminist and writer. This is not a fawning fairy tale – criticisms from contemporaries and the biographer’s own doubts form a significant part of the story. This biography gives wonderful insight to Greer’s life and context, and credits her undeniably massive contribution to secondwave feminism.
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THE ARSONIST Chloe Hooper
As she did in the excellent The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper traces a crime and its aftermath with subtlety, empathy and grace. The Arsonist is Brendan Sokaluk, the man convicted of deliberately lighting the Churchill fires on 2009’s Black Saturday. While the book is divided into two main parts – ‘The Detectives’ trying to piece together the ‘right bits’ and ‘The Lawyers’ defending Sokaluk – its focus is broader, looking at the victims and survivors but most of all on Sokaluk himself, an autistic man with intellectual disability who is, in many ways, lost. NB: Hardback available only while stocks last.
Hardie Grant PB WAS $29.99 NOW $15.95
CLOSE TO HOME: SELECTED WRITING Alice Pung
BOOKS THAT SAVED MY LIFE Michael McGirr
Great literature feeds the hungry mind and takes the heart on a journey. From a lifelong lover of books comes this essays collection about the gift of reading. Schoolteacher and writer Michael McGirr has reviewed almost one thousand texts for Australian newspapers, and remains convinced of literature’s power to enrich and bring joy. He details personal encounters with 40 texts from Homer to Harry Potter, exploring memoir, poetry and some of the world’s great novels. His lyrical insight and deft humour combined with an electric enthusiasm for the written word makes this an ideal companion for the keen reader.
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Black Inc PB $32.99
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Hachette HB WAS $45 NOW $16.95
AUSTRALIAN BUSH SUPERFOODS Lily Alice & Thomas O’Quinn From the Kakadu plum, packed with more vitamin C than any other plant on the planet, to bush tomatoes, richer in antioxidants than blueberries, this book identifies 40 beneficial plants harvested for millennia by our land’s traditional owners. Following an introduction discussing traditional uses, nutritional qualities and the best ways to enjoy the ingredient, each superfood is paired with a recipe. Most importantly, the authors also share useful tips on where to find bushfoods, both online and on the grocery shelf.
THE GETTING OF GARLIC John Newton
Since publishing her award-winning memoir Unpublished Gem in 2006, Alice Pung has proved herself a significant figure within the Australian literary landscape. Close to Home presents a cross-section of her short nonfiction writing, and it is testament to Pung’s remarkable talent as a writer: attentive, funny and empathetic. Divided into loosely themed sections, these essays explore migration, racism, parenthood, identity politics, literature and more. Many circle around home and homecoming, and Pung posits vital questions about what this means in modern Australia. While parts of the book are upsetting, the author’s humour, generosity and evident curiosity imbue her writing with tangible warmth that will charm both fans and newcomers.
NewSouth PB $32.99
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HENRY & BANJO James Knight
Born three years and 300 kilometres apart, Henry Lawson and Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson led vastly different lives. Regardless, both would rise to literary stardom and write words that would leave an indelible mark on the construction of ‘Australia’ in the minds of its people – an influence that lingers today. This is not a straightforward biography. Rather, by using meticulous research, educated guesswork and his own creative instinct, James Knight has crafted a historical diary comprised of colourful vignettes that track the two men throughout their lives and explore key details, including their significant contribution to The Bulletin. Throughout the book, he has remained true to the writers’ spirits, using their own words wherever possible.
Black Inc HB WAS $49.99 NOW $44.99
Food writer John Newton turns an anthropological eye to Australia’s food history in this serious but enjoyably readable book, which tracks Australian food from colonialisation to now. Garlic becomes a symbol of our path from dull to delicious, although Newton acknowledges there was some good food around even before the 1960s and ’70s – the era when we turned towards the wider world and away from English standards. A scattering of recipes accompanies each chapter, but the real meat is the history and analysis – of cuisine, culture, cooks, critics and celebrity chefs.
KING OF THE AIR: THE TURBULENT LIFE OF CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH Ann Blainey
With King of the Air, biographer Ann Blainey (I Am Melba) has written another revealing portrait, this time of Charles Kingsford Smith (1897–1935), Australia’s pioneer daredevil of the skies during the golden age of aviation. Kingsford Smith achieved a series of sensational firsts: the first trans-Pacific flight from the US to Australia, the first nonstop crossing of mainland Australia, the first flights between Australia and New Zealand, and the first eastward crossing from Australia to the US. Blainey charts the many achievements of this charming and gregarious character and delves deeper to reveal the troubled inner man who suffered from acute anxiety attacks but pushed himself to achieve yet more firsts.
Highly Recommended BANJO
BLACK SNAKE
BY SEA & STARS
DARK EMU
DEEP TIME DREAMING
GREEN NOMADS: WILD PLACES
GROWING UP ABORIGINAL IN AUSTRALIA
HAPPY NEVER AFTER
Grantlee Kieza ABC HB $39.99 Kieza chronicles the rich and varied life of the great Australian storyteller and poet, A B Paterson.
Billy Griffiths Black Inc PB $34.99 This story about uncovering traces of ancient Australia explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and belonging.
Leo Kennedy & Mic Looby Affirm HB $35 Written by the greatgrandson of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, killed at Stringybark Creek in 1878, this book gives voice to the victims of the Kelly Gang.
Bob Brown & Paul Thomas Hardie Grant HB $45 Green nomads Bob Brown and Paul Thomas take us with them on a journey across Australia, visiting Bush Heritage sites, and sharing the beauty and diversity they discover in words and photographs.
Trent Dalton 4th Estate HB $24.99 The story of the First Fleet, as told from the point of view of the people who took part – willingly or unwillingly – in the voyage.
Anita Heiss (ed) Black Inc PB $29.99 An anthology showcasing many diverse voices, experiences and stories.
Bruce Pascoe Magabala PB $19.99 Pascoe puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the huntergatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians, calling it a ‘convenient lie’.
Jill Stark Scribe PB $35 Recounting her own life-long mental-health challenges, journalist Jill Stark questions why so many people in the Western world are depressed, anxious and medicated.
