7 days ago
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The acclaimed Australian novelist who withdrew from literary life
Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth.
Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99.
The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child".
Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world.
Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99.
Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid".
Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99.
This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan.
Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99.
First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss.
P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99.
Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why.
The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson
Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99.
Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife.
Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99.
The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks.
Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth.
Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99.
The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child".
Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world.
Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99.
Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid".
Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99.
This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan.
Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99.
First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss.
P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99.
Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why.
The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson
Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99.
Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife.
Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99.
The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks.
Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth.
Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99.
The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child".
Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world.
Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99.
Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid".
Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99.
This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan.
Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99.
First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss.
P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99.
Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why.
The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson
Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99.
Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife.
Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99.
The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks.
Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth.
Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99.
The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child".
Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world.
Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99.
Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid".
Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99.
This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan.
Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99.
First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss.
P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99.
Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why.
The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson
Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99.
Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife.
Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99.
The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks.
