Women dominate the 2013 Miles Franklin shortlist

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

Last year’s winner All That I Am by Anna Funder

The shortlist for this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award features five books by Australian women, with this year’s winner due to receive $60,000, up from $50,000 last year. Last year’s award was presented to Anna Funder for All That I Am. This year’s shortlist features three debut novels—Floundering by Romy Ash, The Beloved by Annah Faulkner and The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska—and one previously shortlisted author, Carrie Tiffany, who was a finalist for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award for Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living. Ash, de Kretser and Tiffany were also longlisted for the inaugural Stella Prize, which was awarded to Tiffany for Mateship with Birds in March.

Richard Neville from the State Library of New South Wales said the five novels on this year’s shortlist share a common theme. ‘The five novels … are at a surface level all about family—the searching for their comfort, the crises when they fail, escaping their pervasive grasp, or the despair when they do not seem possible—but more deeply, these books write about the intersection of people’s lives with national, indeed international, stories and ideas,’ said Neville. ‘Each approaches their subject from very different perspectives, but all deliver complex, engrossing narratives which persist long after the books are closed.’

You can see the full shortlist in detail below. If you haven’t read any of these wonderful books, grab a copy today and choose your winner before the judges do.

Floundering

by Romy Ash

Tom and Jordy have been living with their gran since the day their mother, Loretta, left them on her doorstep and disappeared.

Now Loretta’s returned, and she wants her boys back.

Tom and Jordy hit the road with Loretta in her beat-up car. The family of three journeys across the country, squabbling, bonding, searching and reconnecting.

But Loretta isn’t mother material. She’s broke, unreliable, lost. And there’s something else that’s not quite right with this reunion.

They reach the west coast and take refuge in a beachside caravan park. Their neighbour, a surly old man, warns the kids tostay away. But when Loretta disappears again the boys have no choice but to askthe old man for help, and now they face new threats and new fears.

This beautifully written and gripping debut is as moving as it is frightening, and as heartbreaking as it is tender.

About the Author

Romy Ash is a Melbourne-based writer. She has written for GriffithREVIEW, the Big Issue and frankie magazine. She has a regular cooking column in Yen magazine and writes for the blog Trotski & Ash. The forthcoming Voracious: New Australian Food Writing features one of her essays.

Floundering is her first novel.

Click here to buy Floundering from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Questions of Travel

by Michelle de Kretser

A dazzling, compassionate and deeply moving novel from one of world literature’s rising stars.

A mesmerising literary novel, Questions of Travel charts two very different lives. Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events.

Around these two superbly drawn characters, a double narrative assembles an enthralling array of people, places and stories – from Theo, whose life plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself in Australia.

Award-winning author Michelle de Kretser illuminates travel, work and modern dreams in this brilliant evocation of the way we live now. Wonderfully written, Questions of Travel is an extraordinary work of imagination – a transformative, very funny and intensely moving novel.

About the Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.

She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal.

The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier’s Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize’s Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Click here to buy Questions of Travel from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mateship with Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

On the outskirts of an Australian country town in the 1950s, a lonely farmer trains his binoculars on a family of kookaburras that roost in a tree near his house. Harry observes the kookaburras through a year of feast, famine, birth, death, war, romance and song. As Harry watches the birds, his next door neighbour has her own set of binoculars trained on him. Ardent, hard-working Betty has escaped to the country with her two fatherless children. Betty is pleased that her son, Michael, wants to spend time with the gentle farmer next door. But when Harry decides to teach Michael about the opposite sex, perilous boundaries are crossed.

Mateship with Birds is a novel about young lust and mature love. It is a hymn to the rhythm of country life – to vicious birds, virginal cows, adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one small farm in a vast, ancient landscape, a collection of misfits question the nature of what a family can be.

About the Author

Carrie Tiffany was born in West Yorkshire and grew up in Western Australia. She spent her early twenties working as a park ranger in the Red Centre and now lives in Melbourne, where she works as an agricultural journalist. Her first novel, Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (2005) was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Orange Prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Guardian First Book Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, and won the Dobbie Award for Best First Book (2006) and the 2006 Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction. Mateship with Birds is her second novel.

Click here to buy Mateship with Birds from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Beloved

by Annah Faulkner

“It came one morning with the milk, and it seemed – at first – almost as innocent…”

When Roberta “Bertie” Lightfoot is crippled by polio, her world collapses. But Mama doesn’t tolerate self-pity, and Bertie is nobody if not her mother’s daughter – until she sets her heart on becoming an artist. Through art, the gifted and perceptive Bertie gives form and voice to the reality of the people and the world around her. While her father is happy enough to indulge Bertie’s driving passion, her mother will not let art get in the way of a professional career.

In 1955 the family moves to post-colonial Port Moresby, a sometimes violent frontier town, where Bertie, determined to be the master of her own life canvas, rebels against her mother’s strict control. She thrives amid a vibrant new tropical palette, secretly learning the techniques of drawing and painting under the tutelage of her mother’s arch rival.

But Roberta is not the only one deceiving her family. As secrets come to light, the domestic varnish starts to crack, and jealousy and passion threaten to forever mar the relationship between mother and daughter.

Tender and witty, The Beloved is a moving debut novel which paints a vivid portrait of both the beauty and the burden of unconditional love.

About the Author

Sporadic bursts of poetry and occasional short stories defined Annah’s early writing. In 1996 experiences from a career in acupuncture prompted her to write a non-fiction manual. This was followed by a humorous biography, Frankly Speaking, which enjoyed considerable success in Australia and New Zealand. In 2007 her story, The Blood of Others, was published by the American literary journal Antipodes. Annah and her husband split their time between Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and the South Island of New Zealand. She is presently working on her second novel.

Click here to buy The Beloved from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Mountain

by Drusilla Modjeska

In 1968 in Papua New Guinea there is excitement and violence on the streets. The country is on the brink of independence, but many Papuans are disillusioned with the pace of change, and the tension in Port Moresby is palpable. Amidst the turmoil, Leonard, an anthropologist, arrives with his alluring Dutch wife, Rika. Leonard wants to film villagers from a remote settlement in the mountains, and take Rika with him – the first white woman to go up there. But his new colleagues have other ideas.

Rika befriends two young women from the new university: Laedi, a Papuan with a local mother and Australian father, and Martha, a sweet-natured Australian student. But it is to Aaron and Jacob – two very different clan-brothers – to whom Rika is most dangerously drawn. Her relationship with these two men will change her and Leonard’s lives for ever.

Thirty years later, Jericho, a young art historian, travels from London to Port Moresby to try to make sense of his muddled past, of his birthplace on the mountain in 1968, and to bring back with him the girl he has loved since he was a boy.

About the Author

In 1971 Drusilla Modjeska moved to Australia, and within that decade graduated with a BA (Hons) in History from the Australian National University and a PhD in History from the University of New South Wales. Exiles At Home, her first book, was published in 1981. Poppy (1990), a ‘fictional biography’ of her mother, won the National Book Council Banjo Award for Non-Fiction, the NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Fawcett and PEN International Awards. The Orchard (1994) also won the NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart Award for Non-Fiction and the Nita Kibble Literary Award, as did Stravinsky’s Lunch (1999), which explored the lives of the Australian modernist artists Grace Cossington Smith and Stella Bowen.

Click here to buy The Mountain from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The winner of this year’s award will be announced on 19 June at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. To see a list of all the titles longlisted for this year’s award, click here.

Source: Bookseller + Publisher (http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspx?type=item&id=27014)

Filed under: Australian Author, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Contemporary Literature, Fiction, Literary Prizes | Tagged: 2013 Miles Franklin | Leave a Comment »

The 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist announced

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

The awards news just keeps on coming, with the shortlist for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction announced.

For those that like a familiar face, this is a party you’ll enjoy. Literary juggernaut Hilary Mantel is joined by multiple award-winners Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver.

There’s also some new blood, with the author of the brilliant Life After Life Kate Atkinson getting a nod, alongside other newbies A.M. Homes and Maria Semple. Newbies in terms of Women’s Prize shortlistings, but all wonderful, seasoned authors in their own right.

The bookies have Hilary Mantel as an early favourite, with Kate Atkinson and Barbara Kingsolver also fancied. For trivia buffs, on the other two occasions Hilary Mantel has been shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Fiction, she has been pipped at the post by authors in this year’s field. Zadie Smith for On Beauty in 2006, and Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna. Mantel was shortlisted for Beyond Black and Wolf Hall in those years.

So sit back and check out our profiles of the wonderful books shortlisted for this prestigious award. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 5th June 2013, giving you plenty of time to read these beauties and choose your own winner.

You can also see the books that were longlisted for the Prize here.

Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson

In 1910, Ursula Todd is born during a snowstorm in England, but two parallel scenarios occur – in one, she dies immediately. In the other, she lives to tell the tale. As the possibility of having a second chance at life opens up, the novel unfolds, following Ursula as she lives through the events of the twentieth century again and again. What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, she finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here is Kate Atkinson at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

About the Author

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Kate was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2011 Birthday Honours, for services to literature.

Click here to buy Life After Life from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

May We Be Forgiven

by A.M. Homes

Harry is a Richard Nixon scholar who leads a quiet, regular life; his brother George is a high-flying TV producer, with a murderous temper.They have been uneasy rivals since childhood.Then one day George loses control so extravagantly that he precipitates Harry into an entirely new life. In May We Be Forgiven, Homes gives us a darkly comic look at 21st century domestic life – at individual lives spiraling out of control, bound together by family and history.

The cast of characters experience adultery, accidents, divorce, and death. But this is also a savage and dizzyingly inventive vision of contemporary America, whose dark heart Homes penetrates like no other writer – the strange jargons of its language, its passive aggressive institutions, its inhabitants’ desperate craving for intimacy and their pushing it away with litigation, technology, paranoia.

At the novel’s heart are the spaces in between, where the modern family comes together to re-form itself. May We Be Forgiven explores contemporary orphans losing and finding themselves anew; and it speaks above all to the power of personal transformation – simultaneously terrifying and inspiring.

About the Author

A.M. Homes has been the recipient of numerous awards including Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, NYFA, and The Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library, along with the Benjamin Franklin Award.

She is the author of the novels, This Book Will Save Your Life, Music For Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers, and Jack, as well as the short-story collections, Things You Should Know and The Safety of Objects, the best selling memoir, The Mistress’s Daughter along with a travel memoir, Los Angeles: People, Places and The Castle on the Hill, and the artist’s book Appendix A:

A.M. Homes was born in Washington D.C., she now lives in New York City and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton

Click here to buy May We Be Forgiven from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Flight Behaviour

by Barbara Kingsolver

Discontented with her life of poverty on a failing farm in the Eastern United States, Dellarobia, a young mother, impulsively seeks out an affair. Instead, on the Appalachian mountains above her farm, she discovers something much more profoundly life-changing – a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature. As the world around her is suddenly transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged?

Flight Behaviour is a captivating, topical and deeply human novel touching on class, poverty and climate change. It is Barbara Kingsolver’s most accessible novel yet, and explores the truths we live by, and the complexities that lie behind them.

About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver’s thirteen books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction include the novels The Bean Trees and the international bestseller The Poisonwood Bible which, amongst other accolades, won the 2005 Penguin/Orange Reading Group Book of the Year award. Her most recent novel The Lacuna, won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010.

Click here to buy Like Flight Behaviour from
Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Bring Up the Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a ‘truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

In Bring up the Bodies, sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn. This new novel is a speaking picture, an audacious vision of Tudor England that sheds its light on the modern world. It is the work of one of our great writers at the height of her powers.

About the Author

Hilary Mantel is one of our most important living writers. She is the author of twelve books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Giving Up the Ghost, Beyond Black, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize, and Wolf Hall, which won the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

Click here to buy Bring up the Bodies from
Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

A wildly imaginative, laugh-out-loud but also very poignant novel.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife. To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace. To design experts, she’s a revolutionary architect. And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a compulsively readable, irresistibly written, deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s place in the world.

About the Author

Maria Semple worked in Los Angeles as a television writer for 15 years, working on hit shows including Ellen, Saturday Night Live, Mad About You and Arrested Development. She lives in Seattle.

Click here to buy Where’d You Go, Bernadette from
Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

NW

by Zadie Smith

Hobbes, Smith, Bentham, Locke and Russell.

Five identical blocks make up the Caldwell housing estate in North West London.

If you grew up in this relic of seventies urban design, the plan was to get out and get on, to something better, somewhere else. Thirty years later, Caldwell kids Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan have all moved on, with varying degrees of success – whatever that means. Living only streets apart, they occupy separate worlds, and navigate an atomized city in which few care to be their neighbour’s keeper.

Then one April afternoon a stranger comes to Leah’s door, seeking help, disturbing the peace, and forcing Leah out of her isolation . . .

From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, where the main streets hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end, NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters.

About the Author

Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975, and continues to live in the area. White Teeth is her first novel and won awards for Best Book and Best Female Newcomer at the BT Emma Awards (Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards), the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Prize for a first novel in 2000, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction 2000, the WH Smith Book Award for New Talent, the Frankfurt eBook Award for Best Fiction Work Originally Published in 2000 and both the Commonwealth Writers First Book Award and Overall Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Her other novels are The Autograph Man and On Beauty, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2005 and won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2006. She also edited the collection of contemporary short fiction The Book of Other People, and wrote Changing My Mind, a collection of personal and cultural essays.

Click here to buy NW from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Filed under: Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Fiction, Literary Festivals, Literary Prizes, Publishing | Tagged: 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction, A.M. Homes, Barbara Kingsolver, Bernadette, Bring up the Bodies, Flight Behaviour, Hilary Mantel, Kate Atkinson, Life After Life, Maria Semple, May We Be Forgiven, NW, Shortlist, Where'd You Go, Zadie Smith | Leave a Comment »

Carrie Tiffany wins the inaugural Stella Prize for women writers.

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

Carrie Tiffany, author of the acclaimed Mateship With Birds, has been awarded the inaugural Stella Prize for women writers.

Named after one of Australia’s most important female authors, Stella Maria Miles Franklin, the Stella Prize is worth $50,000, and both fiction and non-fiction books are eligible.

The Melbourne based writer said after her win she would share part of her prizemoney with the five other shortlisted writers.

The Stella Prize was established to raise the profile of women authors.

“I don’t write particularly for women, I don’t write for any particular reader in mind,” Tiffany said. “I write for myself, I think.”

But she welcomed the co-operative spirit of the Stella Prize, saying that women writers were supportive of each other.

She will share $10,000 of her prizemoney with Courtney Collins (The Burial), Michelle de Kretser (Questions of Travel), Lisa Jacobson (The Sunlit Zone), Cate Kennedy (Like a House on Fire) and Margo Lanagan (Sea Hearts).

Judging panel chairwoman Kerryn Goldsworthy said Tiffany had told an “original, tender, frank and funny version of the oldest story in the world: how a man and a woman get together.”

You can see our complete wrap of all the authors longlisted for The Stella Prize here.

You can also see our exclusive interview with Carrie Tiffany here.

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Mateship With Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

Mateship with Birds is a novel about young lust and mature love. It is a hymn to the rhythm of country life – to vicious birds, virginal cows, adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one small farm in a vast, ancient landscape, a collection of misfits question the nature of what a family can be.

About The Author

Click here to buy Mateship With Birds from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

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Filed under: Australian Author, Author Interview, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Competitions, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Writing Style, Writing tips | Tagged: Carrie Tiffany, Mateship with Birds, Stella Prize 2013 | Leave a Comment »

2013 CBCA Awards shortlists announced

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

The shortlists for this year’s Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards have been announced.

Already with a few awards this year, Margo Lanagan joins other award-winning authors like Jackie French, Morris Gleitzman and Margaret Wild in a wonderful field of authors and illustrators.

Older Readers

The Ink Bridge
by Neil Grant

A remarkable and gripping story about one refugee boy on a desperate journey from Afghanistan, and the Australian boy who befriends him.

The Ink Bridge is the compelling story of two young men: Omed, an Afghani refugee who flees the Taliban and undertakes a perilous journey to seek asylum in Australia; and Hector, an Australian boy afflicted by grief, who has given up on school and retreated into silence. Their paths meet at a candle factory where they both find work. But secrets fester behind the monotonous routine: secrets with terrible consequences.

Powerful and compelling, Omed’s and Hector’s story will grip hold of your heart and not let go.

Click here to buy The Ink Bridge from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Sea Hearts
by Margo Lanagan

A mesmerising selkie novel from multi-award winning, internationally acclaimed Australian author, Margo Lanagan – one of the most exciting voices in speculative fiction.

On remote Rollrock Island, the sea-witch Misskaella discovers she can draw a girl from the heart of a seal. So, for a price, any man might buy himself a bride; an irresistibly enchanting sea-wife. But what cost will be borne by the people of Rollrock – the men, the women, the children – once Misskaella sets her heart on doing such a thing?

Click here to buy Sea Hearts from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Shiny Guys
by Doug MacLeod

One night, the shiny guys visit fifteen-year-old Colin Lapsley. They don’t speak, but Colin can read their thoughts. They want him to pay for the terrible thing that he has done. When the shiny guys won’t go away, Colin is admitted to ward 44. There he discovers an alien world, a powerful weapon, a gentle giant, and a girl who may be able to see what he can see.

The Shiny Guys is a dark, sometimes funny novel about how fantasy and reality can merge, especially when electricity is involved.

Click here to buy The Shiny Guys from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Creepy & Maud
by Dianne Touchell

Hilarious and heartbreaking, Creepy & Maud charts the relationship between two social misfits, played out in the space between their windows.

Creepy is a boy who watches from the shadows keenly observing and caustically commentating on human folly.

Maud is less certain. A confused girl with a condition that embarrasses her parents and assures her isolation.

Together Creepy and Maud discover something outside their own vulnerability – each other’s.

Click here to buy Creepy & Maud from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Friday Brown
by Vikki Wakefield

Seventeen-year-old Friday Brown is on the run – running to escape memories of her mother and of the family curse. And of a grandfather who’d like her to stay. She’s lost, alone and afraid.

Silence, a street kid, finds Friday and she joins him in a gang led by beautiful, charismatic Arden. When Silence is involved in a crime, the gang escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday must face the ghosts of her past. She will learn that sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started – and often, before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you were never meant to be.

Friday Brown is the breathtaking second novel from the author of the award-winning All I Ever Wanted. Vikki Wakefield is an astonishing talent.

Click here to buy Friday Brown from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Wrong Boy
by Suzy Zail

Hanna is a talented pianist, and the protected second daughter of middle class Hungarian Jews. Relatively late in World War II the Budapest Jews were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. Hanna and her mother and sister are separated from her father. Her mother becomes increasingly mentally ill until she too is taken away somewhere. Her sister Erika is slowly starving to death. Hanna is quite a naïve 15-year-old but when presented with the opportunity to play piano for the camp commander, she is desperate to be chosen.

She goes each day under guard to the commander’s house and stands waiting in case the commander should want some music. Also living in the house is the commander’s son, Karl. A handsome young man who seems completely disengaged from what is happening around him. Hanna hates him as he sits drawing in the music room. But the longer Hanna goes to the house, the more she realises there are other things going on. Secret things. Karl may not be the person she thinks he is. Before she knows it she has fallen in love with the wrong boy.

Click here to buy The Wrong Boy from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Younger Readers

Pennies for Hitler
by Jackie French

It’s 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils′ heads to see which of them have the most ‘Aryan’- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive.

Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too.

The companion book for Hitler’s Daughter, Pennies For Hitler examines the life of a child during World War 2, from a different perspective.

Click here to buy Pennies for Hitler from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Other Brother
by Simon French

Kieran wants to be part of the in-group at school. He wants to be on the football team. He wants to fit in. But then his cousin Bon turns up.

Bon doesn’t know anything about fitting in – he looks different, he wears the wrong clothes, and he says weird things.

Kieran just wants to ignore Bon, but soon he is forced to make a choice.

Which is more important – being popular, or doing the right thing?

Click here to buy Other Brother from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

After
by Morris Gleitzman

In the fourth part of Felix’s story, continuing his adventures in World War Two,.

In After, he faces perhaps his greatest challenge – to find hope when he’s lost almost everything, including his parents.

As Europe goes through the final agonizing stages of the war, Felix struggles to reconcile hatred and healing.

He’s helped by a new friend, but if he should lose her as well …

Click here to buy After from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Children of the King
by Sonya Hartnett

Three children have been sent to live in the countryside, safe from the war in London.

When they find two boys hiding in a castle, the past and future come together to make an extraordinary adventure.

A hauntingly beautiful story from one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers for adults and children.

Click here to buy Children of the King from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend
by Steven Herrick

Award-winning author Steven Herrick’s latest book is a heart-warming tale about friendship, grief and the importance of baked goods.

In a country town, in a school just like yours, the kids in Class 6A tell their stories.
There’s Mick, school captain and sometimes trouble-maker, who wants to make the school a better place, while his younger brother Jacob just wants to fly. There’s shy and lonely Laura who hopes to finally fit in with a circle of friends, while Pete struggles to deal with his grandpa’s sudden death. Popular Selina obsesses over class comedian Cameron, while Cameron obsesses over Anzac biscuits and Pookie Aleera – whoever that is!

For new teacher Ms Arthur, it’s another world, but for Mr Korsky, the school groundskeeper, he’s seen it all before.

Click here to buy Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk
by Glenda Millard & Stephen Michael King

Flame-haired Saffron is the youngest of the five Silk sisters. Her family know that she has a talent for becoming Anne of Green Gables or Cleopatra, and that she loves reading myths and legends. But they don’t know about the firebirds that come to warn her of terrible headaches. And Saffron doesn’t know how to tell them.

In a big family, it’s easy to be overlooked. But when Saffron is sent to the city to see a specialist, she learns that her family’s love for her is deeper than she ever imagined. And that when you’re a Silk, miracles are never far from home…

Another heart-warming story in Glenda Millard’s multi-award-winning Kingdom of Silk series.

Click here to buy The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Early Childhood

The Terrible Suitcase
by Emma Allen & Freya Blackwood

What do you do when it’s your first day of school and your mum gives you a terrible suitcase instead of a red backpack with yellow rockets and a silver zipper?

Well, first you get mad.

M A D!

Then you use your imagination to build a rocket ship and escape with all your new friends.

Click here to buy The Terrible Suitcase from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

With Nan
by Tania Coz & Karen Blair

A leaf that flies…

A rock that hops…

These are some of the wonderful things that Simon sees on his walk with Nan.

Simon takes a walk through the bush with his Nan and along the way finds out that things are not always what they seem.

A simple story about camouflage is brought to life with the beautiful illustrations by Karen Blair

Click here to buy With Nan from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog
by Sue DeGennaro

Finding the right animal wasn’t easy. It was Camille who finally gave me the idea of being a frog!

Frogboy and Camille are best friends but they are very different.

Camille speaks in numbers and Frogboy likes to dress up.

With Camille’s help he finds that dressing up as a frog is perfect for him, but when he tries to convince his friend to be a frog too, his plan goes terribly wrong.

Click here to buy The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Too Many Elephants in This House
by Ursula Dubosarsky & Andrew Joyner

In Eric’s house there were too many elephants – in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, even in his bedroom!

The elephants take up a lot of space, but Eric loves every one of them. So when his mum says they have to go, Eric comes up with a clever solution to a very BIG problem . . .

From the creators of The Terrible Plop comes this delightfully energetic story, full of fun and exuberance.

Click here to buy Too Many Elephants in This House from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

It’s a Miroocool!
by Christine Harris & Ann James

Audrey lives in the outback, so when she loses her first tooth, she’s worried the tooth fairy will never find her! How will she let the tooth fairy know where she lives . . . and what will the tooth fairy leave her?

This is the same feisty and resourceful Audrey that readers have grown to love in the best-selling “Audrey of the Outback” series. A fabulous introduction for younger readers to the adored children’s fiction character Audrey of the Outback. A wonderfully optimistic story that captures the determined, mischievous, and imaginative nature of children.

Click here to buy It’s a Miroocool! from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Peggy
by Anna Walker

Peggy lives in a small house in a quiet street.

One blustery day a big gust of wind sweeps down and scoops up leaves, twigs and…Peggy!

The wind blows Peggy into the city, where she discovers strange new things, but how will she find her way back home?

Click here to buy Peggy from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Picture Books

The Coat
by Julie Hunt, Illustrated by Ron Brooks

Illustrated by Australia’s leading picture-book artist, this is a surprising and delicious story that will lift you off your feet and whirl you away. A coat in a strawberry patch flies off with a down-at-heel man, and together they have the night of their lives.

The Coat stood in a paddock at the end of a row of strawberries. It was buttoned up tight and stuffed full of straw and it was angry. ‘What a waste of me!’ it yelled. Then along came a man. ‘I could do with a coat like that,’ the man said. Together, swooping and swinging, they travelled to the Cafe Delitzia, and had the night of their lives

Click here to buy The Coat from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Tanglewood
by Margaret Wild, Illustrated by Vivienne Goodman

Tanglewood lives on an island far away, visited only by the wind.

One day a bird shelters from the storm among its branches and a precious bond is formed.

But Seagull belongs to the sky and, too soon, must leave.

Will she ever return?

Click here to buy Tanglewood from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Sophie Scott Goes South
by Alison Lester

Sophie Scott is only nine years old, but she’s going to Antarctica on an icebreaker with her dad, the ship’s captain. During the voyage to Mawson Station and back, Sophie keeps a diary. She sees icebergs, penguins, seals and whales. She makes new friends, experiences the southern lights and even becomes stranded in a blizzard!

Children’s Laureate and much-loved picture-book creator Alison Lester travelled to Antarctica as an Antarctic Arts Fellow. Her alter ego, Sophie Scott, goes on the same adventure in a friendly, informative and beautifully presented book that sees the wonder of Antarctica through a child’s eyes.

Click here to buy Sophie Scott Goes South from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Lightning Jack
by Glenda Millard, Illustrated by Patricia Mullins

When Sam Tully sees the free-spirited horse Lightning Jack, he dares to ride him. Together they muster a herd of steers into their stable, escape a grazier’s deal and fly into the air with Pegasus wings.

Then when they are ambushed by the notorious outlaw Ned Kelly, Lightning Jack leaps out of trouble and back to the wilderness.

But then Sam can’t resist a race and rides Lightning Jack against the ghost of Phar Lap at breakneck speed …Sam’s horse is a gallant horse, a midnight horse, a horse in every dream.

Click here to buy Lightning Jack from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

A Day to Remember
by Jackie French, Illustrated by Mark Wilson

Anzac Day is the day when we remember and honour ANZAC traditions down the ages, from the first faltering march of wounded veterans in 1916 to the ever-increasing numbers of their descendants who march today.

Containing reference to the many places the ANZACs have fought, and the various ways in which they keep the peace and support the civilians in war-torn parts of the world today, this is a picture book that looks not only at traditions, but also the effects of war.

Click here to buy A Day to Remember from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

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Filed under: Australian Author, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Children's Books, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Non Fiction, Publishing | Tagged: Children's Book Council of Australia, Children's Books | 1 Comment »

2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlists announced

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000) and nominees for the People’s Choice Award

The Voyage by Murray Bail

Frank Delage, piano manufacturer from Sydney, travels to Vienna, a city immersed in music, to present the Delage concert grand. He hopes to impress with its technical precision, its improvement on the old pianos of Europe. How could he not know his piano is all wrong for Vienna? Perhaps he should have tried Berlin.

But a chance meeting with Amalia von Schalla brings new possibilities for Delage—connections, her daughter Elisabeth, and an avant garde composer. Now travelling home, on a container ship, with Elisabeth, the real story is about to begin.

The Voyage is a masterly novel by a great writer at the peak of his powers.

Click here to buy The Voyage from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

Escaping the pain and guilt of their mother’s death, and the future they inherited, the Durance sisters leave Australia to nurse on the front during WWI.

In 1915 sisters Naomi and Sally Durance answer a call for nurses to join the war effort. They are escaping the family dairy farm in the Macleay Valley, and they carry a secret with them. Soon they are in Egypt, where they are put to work on the Red Cross hospital ship Archimedes as it patrols the Dardanelles. On Archimedes they witness Mars in all his ferocity, as he pummels soldiers in the massive, brutal metal brawl that is Gallipoli. Yet the sisters and their newfound nursing friends, with whom they will witness undreamt-of carnage and take care of unspeakably blighted men, find themselves courageous in the face of the horror.

Naomi, Sally and their gang are then sent to northern Europe, where Naomi nurses in the visionary Australian Voluntary Hospital run by the committed and eccentric Lady Tarlton, and Sally in a casualty clearing station next to the Western Front. Here, again, they must face the inhumanity of war in its many terrible guises – where trench warfare and gas abound. But it is here, too, that the sisters meet the remarkable men with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives.

Inspired by journals of Australian nursing sisters who gave their all to the Great War effort and the men they nursed, The Daughters Of Mars is vast in scope yet extraordinarily intimate. This is Keneally at the height of his storytelling powers; a stunning tour de force to join the best of First World War literature, and one that casts a fresh light on the challenges faced by the Australian men and women who voluntarily risked their lives for peace.

Click here to buy The Daughters of Mars from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Foal’s Bread by Gillian Mears

The long-awaited new novel from the award-winning author of The Grass Sister tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and the high-jumping horse circuit prior to the Second World War. A love story of impossible beauty and sadness, it is also a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard.

Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, Foal’s Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land.

It is a love story of impossible beauty and sadness, a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard. Written in luminous prose and with an aching affinity for the landscape the book describes, Foal’s Bread is the work of a born writer at the height of her considerable powers. It is a stunning work of remarkable originality and power, one that confirms Gillian Mears’ reputation as one of our most exciting and acclaimed writers.

Click here to buy Foal’s Bread from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse

It is 1950, the League of Nations has collapsed and the newly formed United Nations has rejected all those who worked and fought for the League. Edith Campbell Berry, who joined the League in Geneva before the war, is out of a job, her vision shattered. With her sexually unconventional husband, Ambrose, she comes back to Australia to live in Canberra.

Edith now has ambitions to become Australia’s first female ambassador, but while she waits for a Call from On High, she finds herself caught up in the planning of the national capital and the dream that it should be ‘a city like no other’. When her communist brother, Frederick, turns up out of the blue after many years of absence, she becomes concerned that he may jeopardise her chances of becoming a diplomat. It is not a safe time to be a communist in Australia or to be related to one, but she refuses to be cowed by the anti-communist sentiment sweeping the country. It is also not a safe time or place to be ‘a wife with a lavender husband’.

After pursuing the Bloomsbury life for many years, Edith finds herself fearful of being exposed. Unexpectedly, in mid-life she also realises that she yearns for children. When she meets a man who could offer not only security but a ready-made family, she consults the Book of Crossroads and the answer changes the course of her life. Intelligent, poignant and absorbing, Cold Light is a remarkable stand-alone novel, which can also be read as a companion to the earlier Edith novels Grand Days and Dark Palace.

Click here to buy Cold Light from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

Click here to buy Mateship with Birds from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Animal People by Charlotte Wood

‘I read Charlotte Wood’s novel Animal People twice. I think it’s one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don’t want to review Animal People. I want to recommend it.

‘I felt I had been dismantled, cleaned and reassembled by the novel. The novel did not change me. It reintroduced me to the important parts that make up who I am. And this is why I have had such difficulty writing about Animal People.

‘To write a review is to accept that this book is like the last book I reviewed. That Charlotte Wood’s reason for writing is much like any other novelist’s reason for writing-to tell a story. Well I can’t do that. I feel that Charlotte Wood is an artist, a thinker, an observer, a chronicler, a radical whose work has great value above and beyond the standardised judgements of our day. Wood is writing literature of the kind which hopes to hit upon universal truths using only the simplest and most delicate tools.

‘Animal People is not a long novel. It follows one man as he makes his way through a single day. But even so, within these pages Wood examines some of the loudest issues of our time — terrorism, materialism, social inequality, social welfare, animal cruelty, isolation-and the quietest — love, despair, commitment, loneliness, honesty. In brief, her little novel stalks the greatest of subjects, the human condition. How we live, how we love and how we communicate. And she does so with prose that is spare, considered, beautiful and graceful … Who can I recommend Animal People to? The answer is — You.

‘So, let me end by saying — I really recommend that you read Animal People.’

John Purcell, Booktopia

Click here to buy Animal People from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)

Exile: The Lives and Hopes of Werner Pelz by Roger Averill

Like the best true life adventures, the story of Werner Pelz is stranger than fiction. Forced to flee Nazi Germany for being Jewish, he was then interned in England for being German. Shipped to Australia on the notorious HMT Dunera, he spent two years in internment camps in Hay and Tatura. After returning to Britain, his life evolved into a spiritual quest that led him to become an Anglican vicar, to author popular books (including God Is No More), to frequently appear on the BBC, and to become a Guardian columnist. Decades after his wartime Australian exile, he returned to teach Sociology at La Trobe University, continuing his search for a new way of thinking, a new mythology.

In the mid-1980s, a young university student, Roger Averill, was taught by this quietly charismatic man. The two developed an unlikely friendship, one that was to last until Werner’s death, after which Roger’s research unexpectedly revealed a deeper dimension —a personal life filled with familial drama, pain and poignancy.

Both memoir and biography, Exile: The Lives and Hopes of Werner Pelz is a compelling account of a remarkable man’s life-long search for a truth unbound by orthodoxy. It is also a lyrical evocation of an abiding friendship in which a teacher and a student share the lessons of love and loss, discovering that while the questions they ask have no answers, the act of asking them creates a meaning of its own.

Click here to buy Exile: The Lives and Hopes of Werner Pelz from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson

Ben Jonson was the greatest of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. In the century following his death he was seen by many as the finest of all English writers, living or dead. His fame rested not only on the numerous plays he had written for the theatre, but on his achievements over three decades as principal masque-writer to the early Stuart court, where he had worked in creative, and often stormy, collaboration with Inigo Jones. One of the most accomplished poets of the age, he had

Click here to buy Ben Jonson: A Life from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Dark Night: Walking with McCahon by Martin Emond

In 1984, celebrated painter Colin McCahon went missing for 24 hours in Sydney. On the way to a major exhibition opening, McCahon went in one door of the Botanical Garden toilets and slipped out the other side. He was discovered by police the next day in Centennial Park, far across Sydney, with no identification and no memory of who he was or where he had been. By all accounts McCahon was never quite the same from this night until his death three years later. In this work of creative non-fiction, Martin Edmond illuminates the life and work of Colin McCahon and his own relationship with the art and the man, by taking readers on an imagined (and real) journey as he traces a possible McCahon route across Edmond’s adopted city. Wandering through pubs and flop houses, streets and churches, Edmond explores key issues for both author and subject – the attractions of the bottle, the role of faith and religion, the illuminating power of the imagination, the hold of family relationships.

Click here to buy Dark Night: Walking with McCahon from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage

Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised.

For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it.

With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.

Click here to buy The Biggest Estate on Earth from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Double Entry by Jane Gleeson-White

A fascinating exploration of how a simple system used to measure and record wealth spawned a cultural revolution. Prepare to have your idea of accounting changed forever.

‘The rise and metamorphosis of double-entry bookkeeping is one of history’s best-kept secrets and most important untold tales … Through its logic we have let the planet go to ruin-and through its logic we now have a chance to avert that ruin.’ Our world is governed by the numbers generated by the accounts of nations and corporations. We depend on these numbers to direct our governments, organisations, economies, societies. But where did they come from-and how did they become so powerful?

The answer to these questions begins in the Dark Ages, with the emergence in northern Italy of a new form of accounting called double-entry bookkeeping. The story of double entry reaches from the Crusades through the Renaissance to the factories of industrial Britain and the policymakers of the Great Depression and the Second World War. At its heart stands a Renaissance monk, mathematician and magician, and his celebrated treatise for merchants. With double entry came the wealth and cultural efflorescence that was the Renaissance, a new scientific worldview, and a new economic system: capitalism.

Over the past one hundred years accounting has flourished to an astonishing degree, despite the many scandals it has left in its wake. The figures double entry generates have become a sophisticated system of numbers which in the twenty-first century rules the global economy, manipulated by governments, financial institutions and the quant nerds of Wall Street. And the story of double entry is still unfolding-because today it might be our last hope for life on earth.

Click here to buy Double Entry from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Office: A Hard Working History by Gideon Haigh

The office: for many of us, it’s where we spend more time and allocate greater effort than anywhere else. Yet how many of us have stopped to think about why?

In The Office: A Hardworking History, Gideon Haigh traces from origins among merchants and monks to the gleaming glass towers of New York and the space age sweatshops of Silicon Valley, finding an extraordinary legacy of invention and ingenuity, shaped by the telephone, the typewriter, the elevator, the email, the copier, the cubicle, the personal computer, the personal digital assistant.

Amid the formality, restraint and order of office life, too, he discovers a world teeming with dramas great and small, of boredom, betrayal, distraction, discrimination, leisure and lust, meeting along the way such archetypes as the Whitehall mandarin, the Wall Street banker, the Dickensian clerk, the Japanese salaryman, the French bureaucrat and the Soviet official.

In doing so, Haigh taps a rich lode of art and cinema, fiction and folklore, visiting the workplaces imagined by Hawthorne and Heller, Kafka and Kurosawa, Balzac and Billy Wilder, and visualised from Mary Tyler Moore to Mad Men, from Network to 9 to 5 – plus, of course, The Office. Far from simply being a place we visit to earn a living, the office emerges as a way of seeing the entire world.

The Office: it’s the history of all of us.

Click here to buy The Office: A Hard Working History from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)

Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby-Eckermann

Ruby Moonlight, a novel of the impact of colonisation in mid north South Australia around 1880. The main character, Ruby, refugee of a massacre, shelters in the woods where she befriends an Irishman trapper. The poems convey how fear of discovery is overcome by the need for human contact, which, in a tense unravelling of events, is forcibly challenged by an Aboriginal lawman. The natural world is richly observed and Rubys courtship is measured by the turning of the seasons.

Click here to buy Ruby Moonlight from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

First Light by Kate Fagan

The poems in First Light are both playful and intensely personal, combining an interest in language and the sound of words, with a sensual engagement with the world and the experiences of family life. Some poems are created by sampling from other writers; others test the tipping point between poetry and prose in small narrative prayers, or stage a dialogue in love letters. Above all, this is a collection which explores the musicality of language , offering an important contribution to the technical range of Australian poetry, and its lyric possibilities.

Click here to buy First Light from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Open Sesame by Michael Farrell

Michael Farrell is well known for his ability to break language and action into their component gestures, freeing the emotion locked up in them, and very often their comic or magical aspects too, as the title of his new poetry collection suggests. Open Sesame includes sonnets derived from the TV drama The Bill, a sestina featuring JFK set in a laundrette, an improvised parody which cuts up writing found on supermarket shelves, collage poems including one on Phar Lap, four long poems on the theme of friendship, and luke and henrys storyline, the story of a commitment ceremony between two gay men. In an earlier form, the manuscript of this collection won the inaugural Barrett Reid Poetry Prize for experimental poetry, and was praised by the judges for its playfulness, craft and subliminal force.

Click here to buy Open Sesame from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Welfare of My Enemy by Anthony Lawrence

Blending verse novella and book-length poem, The Welfare of My Enemy is a ground-breaking, haunted portrait of the phenomenon of Missing Persons. At times disturbing, always captivating, this new book showcases Lawrences marvellous imagery and spellbinding rhythms in a work that highlights a dark, prevailing underside to Australian society.

Click here to buy The Welfare of My Enemy from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Ladylike by Kate Lilly

Ladylike is Kate Lilley’s second volume of poetry, much awaited after her 2002 debut Versary (Salt Publishing). She mines the areas of her scholarly specialisation – the early modern period – as well as contemporary popular culture and matches it with some of the twentieth century’s enduring interests such as psychoanalysis and the figure of Sigmund Freud. At all times Kate Lilley applies her sardonic humour and mischievous word play to make her dazzling poems.

Click here to buy Ladylike from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Here, There and Elsewhere by Vivian Smith

Here, There and Elsewhere, is Vivian Smiths first new collection in five years, and his most personal book. The poems draw on memories of life in Hobart and Sydney, travels in Europe and South America, old friends and respected writers, offering quiet lessons for the present, searching for the sense of what is real/ the truth of what I am and what I feel. There is a sequence on the Ern Malley affair, told from the point of view of the poet, who just wants to be left alone; and two autobiographical essays, on the exhibition of French paintings shipwrecked off the Tasmanian coast in 1952, and on the three houses of Pablo Neruda, both of which are poetic testaments.

Click here to buy Here, There and Elsewhere from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000)

Three Summers by Judith Clarke

A careful, gentle, deeply passionate novel about how a young love, undeclared and unfulfilled, both blights and blesses an entire lifetime, and generations beyond. This story, which begins in rural Australia in 1959 but reaches into the past and the future, is written with Judith Clarke’s magnificent precision and lightness, that makes you feel for a moment when you have finished it that you have actually lived someone else?s life.’ Ursula Dubosarsky

When Ruth and Fee finish school, they each must make a choice. Ruth’s grandmother wants her to go to university and to see every marvellous place in the world. Fee wants to stay and be a mother. But for Ruth, leaving town means leaving Tam Finn, the elusive yet entrancing boy so unlike any other she has ever met.

Judith Clarke’s story of enduring friendship and the saving grace of love will leave you breathless.

Click here to buy Three Summers from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Ink Bridge by Neil Grant

A remarkable and gripping story about one refugee boy on a desperate journey from Afghanistan, and the Australian boy who befriends him.

Powerful and compelling, Omed’s and Hector’s story will grip hold of your heart and not let go.

Click here to buy The Ink Bridge from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

A mesmerising selkie novel from multi-award winning, internationally acclaimed Australian author, Margo Lanagan – one of the most exciting voices in speculative fiction.

Click here to buy Sea Hearts from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Madeleine Tully lives in Cambridge, England, the World – a city of spires, Isaac Newton and Auntie’s Tea Shop.

Elliot Baranski lives in Bonfire, the Farms, the Kingdom of Cello – where seasons roam, the Butterfly Child sleeps in a glass jar, and bells warn of attacks from dangerous Colours.

They are worlds apart – until a crack opens up between them; a corner of white – the slim seam of a letter.

Elliot begins to write to Madeleine, the Girl-in-the-World – a most dangerous thing to do for suspected cracks must be reported and closed.

But Elliot’s father has disappeared and Madeleine’s mother is sick.

Can a stranger from another world help to unravel the mysteries in your own? Can Madeleine and Elliot find the missing pieces of themselves before it is too late?

A mesmerising story of two worlds; the cracks between them, the science that binds them and the colours that infuse them.

Click here to buy A Corner of White from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Into that Forest by Louis Nowra

From one of Australia’s foremost literary talents, this is an unforgettable and heartbreaking story about two young girls living in the wild with Tasmanian Tigers.

Me name be Hannah O’Brien and I be seventy-six years old. Me first thing is an apology – me language is bad cos I lost it and had to learn it again. But here’s me story and I be glad to tell it before I hop the twig.

So begins this extraordinary novel, which will transport you to Australia’s wild frontier and stay in your mind long after you’ve finished reading.

Click here to buy Into that Forest from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle

A breathtakingly beautiful book which, like Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, will move and delight readers of all ages.

‘Reading this book is like being quietly ushered into another dimension by winged strangers, a place beyond the tread of normal earth-bound language. Ephemeral as a feather, timeless as a rock, and as true as both, Unforgotten is a magical experience.’ – Shaun Tan

So begins this timely and timeless story, told in magnificent images and words by master storyteller, Tohby Riddle. A triumph of quiet beauty.

Click here to buy Unforgotten from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)

The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon by Aaron Blabey

No matter what hour, she lurked looking sour, be it midnight or mid-afternoon.Her dresses were shabby, her mood always crabby. Her name was Miss Annabel Spoon.

Life is cursed For The people of the village of Twee. The ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon haunts their every waking hour and they’ve had enough! But then one day, The brave and practical young Herbert Kettle has the most extraordinary idea . . .

Click here to buy The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Brotherband 1: The Outcasts

John Flanagan, author of the international phenomenon Ranger’s Apprentice, creates a world of seafaring adventures, treacherous pirates and epic battles in Brotherband.

In Skandia, there is only one way to become a warrior. Boys are chosen for teams called brotherbands and must endure three months of gruelling training in seamanship, weapons and battle tactics. It’s brotherband against brotherband, fighting it out in a series of challenges. There can be on`ly one winner.

When Hal Mikkelson finds himself the unwilling leader of a brotherband made up of outcasts, he must step up to the challenge. The Heron brotherband might not have the strength and numbers of the other two teams, but with inventiveness, ingenuity and courage on their side, they might just surprise

Click here to buy Brotherband 1: The Outcasts from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend by Steven Herrick

Award-winning author Steven Herrick’s latest book is a heart-warming tale about friendship, grief and the importance of baked goods.

In a country town, in a school just like yours, the kids in Class 6A tell their stories.

There’s Mick, school captain and sometimes trouble-maker, who wants to make the school a better place, while his younger brother Jacob just wants to fly. There’s shy and lonely Laura who hopes to finally fit in with a circle of friends, while Pete struggles to deal with his grandpa’s sudden death. Popular Selina obsesses over class comedian Cameron, while Cameron obsesses over Anzac biscuits and Pookie Aleera – whoever that is!

For new teacher Ms Arthur, it’s another world, but for Mr Korsky, the school groundskeeper, he’s seen it all before.

Click here to buy Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

A Bear and a Tree by Stephen Michael King

Ren knows that it’s almost time for Bear’s big sleep, but she needs just one more day with him. One day to explore the winter together – the last of the coloured leaves, the snow as it floats and swirls to the ground, the sun and the moon and the stars.

One more day to play and dance and wonder.

From this much-admired children’s book creator comes a story of friendship and change, and of how precious time can be when we share it with those we love.

Click here to buy A Bear and a Tree from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk: Kingdom of Silk Series 6 by Glenda Millard, Illustrations by Stephen Michael King

Click here to buy The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Dragonkeeper Book 4: Blood Brothers by Carole Wilkinson

The next instalment in the best-selling and award-winning Dragonkeeper series.

The year is 325. The powerful Han Dynasty is a distant memory and tribes of barbarian soldiers fight over what was once the Empire. It is a dangerous time. Kai is 465 years old – a teenager in dragon years. He is searching for the person predestined to be his dragonkeeper. Kai’s search has led him to a Buddhist novice named Tao. But Tao is certain he is not the one; he has no interest in caring for a difficult dragon. He believes his path lies in another direction. But Tao must learn to listen to the voice within himself and that no journey ever reveals its true purpose until it is over.

Click here to buy Dragonkeeper Book 4: Blood Brothers from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Community Relations Commission Award ($20,000)

All Windows Open and Other Stories by Hariklia Heristandinidis
Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From by Tim Soutphommasane
Beneath the Darkening Sky by Majok Tulba
Anguli Ma: A Gothic Take by Chi Vu

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5000)

Eleven Seasons by Paul Carter
The Burial by Courtney Collins
Sufficient Grace by Amy Espeseth
Running Dogs by Ruby Murray
The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O’Neill
The Last Thread by Michael Sala

NSW Premier’s Translation Prize

Peter Boyle
Alison Entrekin
Brian Nelson
Ouyang Yu

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced on 19 May as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

Voting for the People’s Choice Award will open on Friday 12 April and votes can be cast via the State Library of NSW website.

Filed under: Australian Author, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Children's Books, Fiction, Literary Festivals, Literary Prizes, Non Fiction, Publishing | Tagged: NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Shortlist | Leave a Comment »

The 2013 Miles Franklin Longlist announced

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

Female authors have dominated the longlist for this year’s Miles Franklin literary award, earning eight of the 10 nominations.

Romy Ash, Lily Brett, Michelle de Kretser, Annah Faulkner, Drusilla Modjeska, ML Stedman, Carrie Tiffany and Jacqueline Wright make up the female contingent, while Brian Castro and Tom Keneally are the only fellas.

The 10 nominations will be narrowed down at a public event at the State Library of NSW on April 30.

The winner will be announced in Canberra on June 19 and will take home $60,000 in prize money.

Anna Funder was last year’s winner for her novel All that I Am.

Don’t miss the chance to grab a copy of these fantastic books and judge them for yourself with the help of Booktopia. We’ve made it easy for you, profiling the authors and books up for the gong this year.

You can also see a special series for this year’s longlist on our website by clicking here.

Floundering

by Romy Ash

Tom and Jordy have been living with their gran since the day their mother, Loretta, left them on her doorstep and disappeared.

Now Loretta’s returned, and she wants her boys back.

Tom and Jordy hit the road with Loretta in her beat-up car. The family of three journeys across the country, squabbling, bonding, searching and reconnecting.

But Loretta isn’t mother material. She’s broke, unreliable, lost. And there’s something else that’s not quite right with this reunion.

This beautifully written and gripping debut is as moving as it is frightening, and as heartbreaking as it is tender.

About the Author

Floundering is her first novel.

Click here to buy Floundering from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Lola Bensky

by Lily Brett

Lola Bensky is a nineteen-year-old rock journalist who irons her hair straight and asks a lot of questions. A high-school dropout, she’s not sure how she got the job – but she’s been sent by her Australian newspaper right to the heart of the London music scene at the most exciting time in music history: 1967.

Lola spends her days planning diets and interviewing rock stars. In London, Mick Jagger makes her a cup of tea, Jimi Hendrix (possibly) propositions her and Cher borrows her false eyelashes. At the Monterey International Pop Festival, Lola props up Brian Jones and talks to Janis Joplin about sex. In Los Angeles, she discusses being overweight with Mama Cass and tries to pluck up the courage to ask Cher to return those false eyelashes.

Lola has an irrepressible curiosity, but she begins to wonder whether the questions she asks these extraordinary young musicians are really a substitute for questions about her parents’ calamitous past that can’t be asked or answered. As Lola moves on through marriage, motherhood, psychoanalysis and a close relationship with an unexpected pair of detectives, she discovers the question of what it means to be human is the hardest one for anyone – including herself – to answer.

Drawing on her own experiences as a young journalist, the bestselling author of Too Many Men has created an unforgettable character in the unconventional and courageous Lola. Genuinely funny and deeply moving, Lola Bensky shows why Lily Brett is one of our most distinctive and internationally acclaimed authors.

About the Author

Lily Brett was born in Germany and came to Melbourne with her parents in 1948. She is one of Australia’s most loved, prolific and successful authors. She has published six works of fiction, seven books of poetry, and three essay collections to much critical acclaim in Australia and around the world. Lily Brett is married to the Australian painter David Rankin. They have three children and live in New York.

Click here to buy Lola Bensky from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Street to Street

by Brian Castro

Brian Castro takes up the novella, the form favoured by David Malouf and Helen Garner, in his new work of fiction, based on the life of the early twentieth-century Sydney poet Christopher Brennan. Brennan wrote some of the most powerful and ambitious poems in Australian poetry; he was a formidable literary figure who corresponded with Mallarm and wrote on French poetry. He died an impoverished alcoholic. Castros portrait of Brennan, seen through the eyes of his would-be biographer Brendan Costa, explores the fear of failure which haunts those who live by the imagination the fear of not achieving their own high ideals, and of disappointing their families and those who depend them. The story is told with the wit and energy that is the hallmark of Castros writing.

About the Author

Brian Castro was educated at the University of Sydney and has worked in Australian, French and Hong Kong universities as a teacher and writer. He is the author of nine novels and a volume of essays on writing and culture. His novels have won a number of state and national prizes including the Australian/Vogel literary award, The Age Fiction Prize, the National Book Council Prize for Fiction, four Victorian Premier’s awards, two NSW Premier’s awards and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction. He has delivered keynote addresses at major conferences in Shanghai, Vienna, Paris, Toulouse, Hong Kong and Kyoto. He has been a Literature Board member on the Australia Council. For many years he was the literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. In 2006 he held the position of Macgeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne. In 2007-8 he was the Professorial Research Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. He is currently Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and is co-director of the J.M. Coetzee centre for Creative Practice, a centre for cross-disciplinary linkages and research into creativity.

Click here to buy Street to Street from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Questions of Travel

by Michelle de Kretser

A dazzling, compassionate and deeply moving novel from one of world literature’s rising stars.

About the Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.

Click here to buy Questions of Travel from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mateship with Bird

by Carrie Tiffany

About the Author

Click here to buy Mateship with Birds from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

A bestseller around the world reaching no.4 on the New York Times fiction list.

They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens next will break yours.

1926. Tom Sherbourne is a young lighthouse keeper on a remote island off Western Australia. The only inhabitants of Janus Rock, he and his wife Isabel live a quiet life, cocooned from the rest of the world.

Then one April morning a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a crying infant – and the path of the couple’s lives hits an unthinkable crossroads.

Only years later do they discover the devastating consequences of the decision they made that day – as the baby’s real story unfolds …

About the Author

M. L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia, and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is her first novel published by Random House Australia, and has so far been translated into nearly thirty languages. It has been a bestselling book around the world, including Australia, Italy, Denmark and America. It was recently voted Best Historical Novel of 2012 by members of Goodreads.

Click here to buy The Light Between Oceans from
Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Beloved

by Annah Faulkner

“It came one morning with the milk, and it seemed – at first – almost as innocent…”

Tender and witty, The Beloved is a moving debut novel which paints a vivid portrait of both the beauty and the burden of unconditional love.

About the Author

Click here to buy The Beloved from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Daughters of Mars

by Tom Keneally

About the Author

Thomas Keneally won the Booker Prize in 1982 with Schindler’s Ark, later made into the Academy Award-winning film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg. His non-fiction, includes the memoir Searching for Schindler and Three Famines, an LA Times Book of the Year, and the histories The Commonwealth of Thieves, The Great Shame and American Scoundrel. His fiction, includes The Widow and Her Hero (shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award), An Angel in Australia and Bettany’s Book. His novels The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers for the Paraclete won the Miles Franklin Award. The People’s Train was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia division.

Click here to buy The Daughters of Mars from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Mountain

by Drusilla Modjeska

About the Author

Click here to buy The Mountain from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Red Dirt Talking

by Jacqueline Wright

It’s build-up time in the north-western town of Ransom, just before the big wet, when people go off the rails.

In the midst of a bitter custody battle, an eight year old girl goes missing.

Annie, an anthropology graduate fresh from the city, is determined to uncover the mystery of the child’s disappearance.

As Annie searches for the truth beneath the township’s wild speculations, she finds herself increasingly drawn towards Mick Hooper, a muscly, seemingly laid-back bloke with secrets of his own.

About the Author

Jacqueline Wright worked for many years as a teacher and linguist in the Pilbara and Kimberley on Indigenous Australian Aboriginal language, interpreting and cultural programs. In 2000 she took on the regional literature position promoting and developing literary activities and improving opportunities for writers in the north-west of Western Australia. Now she swings two part-time jobs working as publishing intern at Magabala Books and a sports producer at ABC radio, Broome. She completed a Creative Arts Doctorate at Curtin University.

Click here to buy Red Dirt Talking from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Filed under: Australian Author, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Contemporary Literature, Fiction, Literary Prizes | Tagged: 2013 Miles Franklin | 2 Comments »

2012 Aurealis Awards Finalists announced

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

The finalists for the 2012 Aurealis Awards have been announced today, with Margo Lanagan leading the field with 5 nominations including nods for Best Fantasy Novel and Best Young Adult Novel for her book Sea Hearts,.

Kate Forsyth was rewarded for her stellar year with the nomination of Bitter Greens, just a few days after her highly anticipated novel Wild Girl hit the shelves.

Judging Co-ordinator, Tehani Wessely, said that with almost 750 entries across the thirteen categories, the judges had a difficult job.

Margo Lanagan

“Once again, the judges agreed that entries were of a very high standard and the final decisions were subject to much debate among the panellists. We had record entries in almost all categories.

“The trend towards quality e-published fiction continued in 2012, with a high percentage of entries published this way. The short story categories continue to flourish, and while some entry categories were relatively small, others maintained or surpassed previous figures.”

“I’d like to thank all the judges for their time and effort judging of these awards.”

2012 Aurealis Awards – Finalists

FANTASY NOVEL

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Flame of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier

FANTASY SHORT STORY

“Sanaa’s Army” by Joanne Anderton

“The Stone Witch” by Isobelle Carmody

“First They Came” by Deborah Kalin

“Bajazzle” by Margo Lanagan

“The Isles of the Sun” by Margo Lanagan

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Suited by Jo Anderton

The Last City by Nina D’Aleo

And All The Stars by Andrea K Host

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

“Visitors” by James Bradley

“Significant Dust” by Margo Lanagan

“Beyond Winter’s Shadow” by Greg Mellor

“The Trouble with Memes” by Greg Mellor

“The Lighthouse Keepers’ Club” by Kaaron Warren

HORROR NOVEL

Bloody Waters by Jason Franks

Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott

Blood and Dust by Jason Nahrung

Salvage by Jason Nahrung

HORROR SHORT STORY

“Sanaa’s Army” by Joanne Anderton

“Elyora” by Jodi Cleghorn

“To Wish Upon a Clockwork Heart” by Felicity Dowker

“Escena de un Asesinato” by Robert Hood

“Sky” by Kaaron Warren

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Dead, Actually by Kaz Delaney

And All The Stars by Andrea K. Host

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Into That Forest by Louis Nowra

YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

“Stilled Lifes x 11” by Justin D’Ath

“The Wisdom of the Ants” by Thoraiya Dyer

“Rats” by Jack Heath

“The Statues of Melbourne” by Jack Nicholls

“The Worry Man” by Adrienne Tam

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through words)

Brotherband: The Hunters by John Flanagan

Princess Betony and the Unicorn by Pamela Freeman

The Silver Door by Emily Rodda

Irina the Wolf Queen by Leah Swann

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through pictures)

Little Elephants by Graeme Base (author and illustrator)

The Boy Who Grew Into a Tree by Gary Crew (author) and Ross Watkins (illustrator)

In the Beech Forest by Gary Crew (author) and Den Scheer (illustrator)

Inside the World of Tom Roberts by Mark Wilson (author and illustrator)

ILLUSTRATED BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL

Blue by Pat Grant (author and illustrator)

It Shines and Shakes and Laughs by Tim Molloy (author and illustrator)

Changing Ways #2 by Justin Randall (author and illustrator)

_______________________________________

Winners of the 2012 Aurealis Awards and the Peter McNamara Convenors’ Award for Excellence will be announced at the Aurealis Awards ceremony, on the evening of Saturday 18 May at the Independent Theatre, North Sydney.

Filed under: Adventure, Australian Author, Book Talk, Competitions, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Horror, Literary Festivals, Literary Prizes, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Short Story Collection, Young Adult | Tagged: 2012 Aurealis Awards | Leave a Comment »

Claire Vaye Watkins wins U.S. Story Prize for short fiction

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

Author Claire Vaye Watkins was awarded the Story Prize in New York this morning for her debut collection, Battleborn. As winner she receives $20,000.

She faced some tough competition for the prize, with celebrated writers Dan Chaon and Junot Diaz also on the shortlist. Dan Chaon was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, while Junot Diaz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for the incredible The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Neither Chaon or Diaz left empty-handed however, collecting a cool $5,000 for their works Stay Awake, and This Is How You Lose Her

The judges wrote in a release about the prize, “In the ten stories in her first collection, Claire Vaye Watkins takes an unflinching look at the apocalyptic dimensions of our culture’s boom-or-bust obsession…. She’s a fierce and original new writer, and Battleborn is an astonishing short story collection.”

This year marks the ninth anniversary of the Story Prize, the most significant award in the U.S. dedicated to collections of short fiction.

About the Finalists

Claire Vaye Watkins was born and raised in the Mojave Desert. Her collection of short stories, Battleborn, won a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and earned Watkins inclusion on the National Book Foundation’s list of “5 Under 35.” A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, She earned her MFA from the Ohio State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Best of the West 2011, Best of the Southwest 2013, and elsewhere. An assistant professor at Bucknell University, Watkins is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a non-profit creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.

Dan Chaon is the author of Stay Awake, Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.

Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and is the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; as well as This is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist; and the critically acclaimed Drown. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, African Voices, and numerous Best American Short Stories anthologies. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award among other accolades. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Click here to buy the winner of The 2012 The Short Story Prize Battleborn from
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Filed under: Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Literature, Short Story Collection | Tagged: Battleborn, Claire Vaye Watkins, Dan Chaon, Junot Díaz, Stay Awake, Story Prize, This Is How You Lose Her | Leave a Comment »

The 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist announced

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

The longlist for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced, and with Australia’s M.L. Stedman and Carrie Tiffany being joined by New Zealand’s Emily Perkins, the diversity of the list has been applauded the world over.

Formerly The Orange Prize for Fiction, the longlist for The Women’s Prize for Fiction will be cut down to a shortlist at the London Book Fair on April 16, ahead of the winner’s announcement on June 5. This year’s winner will receive a cash prize of £30,000 (A$43,355).

Familiar names like Hilary Mantel and past winners Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver are joined by bright up and comers like Shani Boianjiu, Bonnie Nadzam and debut novelist Francesca Segal.

Booktopia has profiled the books up for the award, as well as each author nominated, so you don’t skip a beat in the follow up to the winner being announced in June. Don’t miss out on reading these wonderful books with Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore.

The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

A bestseller around the world reaching no.4 on the New York Times fiction list.

They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens next will break yours.

Then one April morning a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a crying infant – and the path of the couple’s lives hits an unthinkable crossroads.

Only years later do they discover the devastating consequences of the decision they made that day – as the baby’s real story unfolds …

About the Author

Click here to buy The Light Between Oceans from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mateship with Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

About the Author

Click here to buy Mateship with Birds from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Forrests

by Emily Perkins

Evelyn and Dorothy – the twins – are seven when the Forrests move from New York City, the hub of the world, to Westmere, New Zealand. The Forrest Trust Fund now cut out of their lives, the family live under a cloudless sky, in the dust and the heat, outdoors and running wild. Their father – who they would only call Frank – works for a cab company over the weekends but is really an actor. Michael, the eldest, has a friend called Daniel whose father lives in a half-way house. He starts to live with them, punches Dorothy on the shoulder to stop her crying when she starts school, and becomes family.

Lee, their mother, takes them to a commune when she needs to get away from Frank. The memory of that place – the freedom, the dirty richness of the landscape, the stolen kisses – their chaotic childhood, undulates beneath the surface of all their lives, and brings them together in flickering moments when they grow far apart.

The passing of time happens quickly. Evelyn and Dorothee grow older, discover sex, love, have babies, and watch as they too grow old. Their youngest sister moves away and their parents decrease in importance in their lives. Daniel, like a shadow, is always in the back of their minds. Death changes everything, but somehow life remains the same.

In a narrative that shifts and moves, growing as wild as the characters, The Forrests is an extraordinary literary achievement. A novel that sings with color and memory, it speaks of family and time, dysfunction, aging and loneliness, about lethargy, heat, youth, and how there is always something inaccessible and secretive, lying just out of reach.

About the Author

Emily Perkins is a writer of contemporary fiction, and the success of her first collection of stories, not her real name and other stories, established her early on as an important writer of her generation. Perkins has written novels, as well as short fiction, and her writing has won and been shortlisted for a number of significant awards and prizes. She was the 2006 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow, and she used the fellowship to work on her book, Novel About My Wife, published in 2008. She is an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award winner (2011).

Click here to buy The Forrests from Booktopia,
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A Trick I Learned From Dead Men

by Kitty Aldridge

What’s it like then, a dead body? I always hesitate, but if I were forced to describe it, at gunpoint so to speak, a dead person is like a newborn, weird, other-worldly, but. Familiar as your own face in the mirror. After the disappearance of their father and the sudden death of their mother, Lee Hart and his deaf brother, Ned, imagine all is lost until Lee lands a traineeship at their local funeral home and discovers there is life after death. Here, in the company of a crooning ex-publican, a closet pole vaulter, a terminally-ill hearse driver, and the dead of their local town, old wounds begin to heal and love arrives as a beautiful florist aboard a ‘Fleurtations’ delivery van.

But death is closer than Lee Hart thinks. Somewhere among the quiet lanes and sleepy farms something else is waiting. And it is closing in. Don’t bring your work home with you, that’s what they say. Too late.

Sometimes sad, often hilarious and ultimately tragic and deeply moving, A Trick I Learned From Dead Men is a pitch perfect small masterpiece from a writer described by Richard Ford as having ‘a moral grasp upon life that is grave, knowing, melancholy, often extremely funny and ultimately optimistic’.

About the Author

After training as an actress at the Drama Centre London, Aldridge worked in film, theatre and television as an actress. Her first novel Pop was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002 and shortlisted for the Pendleton May First Novel Award 2002.

Aldridge’s short story, Arrivederci Les, won the Bridport Short Story Prize 2011.

Click here to buy A Trick I Learned From Dead Men from Booktopia,
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Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

About the Author

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Kate was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2011 Birthday Honours, for services to literature.

Click here to buy Life After Life from Booktopia,
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The Marlowe Papers

by Ros Barber

On May 30th, 1593, a celebrated young playwright was killed in a tavern brawl in London. That, at least, was the official version. Now let Christopher Marlowe tell you the truth: that his ‘death’ was an elaborate ruse to avoid his being hanged for heresy; that he was spirited across the channel to live on in lonely exile, longing for his true love and pining for the damp streets of London; that he continued to write plays and poetry, hiding behind the name of a colourless man from Stratford – one William Shakespeare.

With the grip of a thriller and the emotional force of a sonnet, this extraordinary novel in verse gives voice to a man who was brilliant, passionate, mercurial and not altogether trustworthy. The son of a cobbler who rose so far in Elizabethan society that he counted nobles among his friends and patrons, a spy in the Queen’s service, a fickle lover and a declared religious sceptic, he was always courting trouble. When it caught up with him, he was lucky to have connections powerful enough to help him escape.

Memoir, love letter, settling of accounts and a cry for recognition as the creator of some of the most sublime works in the English language, this is Christopher Marlowe’s testament – and a tour de force by an award-winning poet: provocative, persuasive and enthralling.

About the Author

Ros Barber was born in Washington DC and raised in England. She is the author of three collections of poetry, the latest of which (Material, Anvil 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her short fiction, which won prizes in the Asham and Independent on Sunday short story competitions, has been published by Bloomsbury and Serpents Tail. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry London, London Magazine, The Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and many other publications; it also features in anthologies published by Faber, Virago, Anvil and Seren. Dr. Barber has also published academic papers on Christopher Marlowe. She lives in Brighton and has four children.

Click here to buy The Marlowe Papers from Booktopia,
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The People of Forever are Not Afraid

by Shani Boianjiu

Lea, Navishag and Yael are school friends in a nondescript town in Israel. During dull lessons they play their invented game Exquisite Corpse and fantasise about the boys they fancy. When they hit eighteen they are conscripted into the army. Marooned on checkpoint duty with a bunch of morons, Lea relieves her boredom by creating an invented family life for a dishevelled Palestinian man she sees everyday at the border; Yael takes to sleeping with the men she is training, in between breaking up and getting back together with her wimpish boyfriend at home; and Navishag’s days are dogged by memories of her brother, Dan, who committed suicide after leaving the army. They wait in the dust for something to happen. Energetic, relentless, and with a sharp caustic humour, The People of Forever are Not Afraid captures that single, intense second just before danger erupts.

About the Author

Shani Boianjiu was born in 1987 in a small town on the Israel/Lebanon border, and she served in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Vice magazine, and Zoetrope: All Story. Shani is the youngest recipient ever of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, for which she was chosen by Nicole Krauss. She lives in Israel.

Click here to buy The People of Forever are Not Afraid from Booktopia,
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Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

‘What are you thinking, Amy?’ The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: ‘What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?’

Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn’t true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren’t his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick’s beautiful wife? And what was in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war. . .

About the Author

Gillian Flynn’s first novel Sharp Objects was the winner of two CWA Daggers, and was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger, and also for an Edgar. She lives in Chicago with her husband.

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How Should A Person Be?

by Sheila Heti

Reeling from a failed marriage, Sheila, a twenty something playwright, finds herself unsure of how to live and create. When Margaux, a talented painter and free spirit, and Israel, a sexy and depraved artist, enter her life, Sheila hopes that through close – sometimes too close – observation of her new friend, her new lover, and herself, she might regain her footing in art and life.

Using transcribed conversations, real emails, plus heavy doses of fiction, the brilliant and always innovative Sheila Heti crafts a work that is part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part bawdy confessional. It’s a totally shameless and dynamic exploration into the way we live now, which breathes fresh wisdom into the eternal questions: What is the sincerest way to love? What kind of person should you be?

About the Author

Sheila Heti is the author of five books; three books of fiction, a children’s book, and a work of non-fiction with Misha Glouberman. She is Interviews Editor at The Believer and is known for her long interviews. She lives in Toronto.

Click here to buy How Should A Person Be? from Booktopia,
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May We Be Forgiven

by A.M. Homes

About the Author

A.M. Homes was born in Washington D.C., she now lives in New York City and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton

Click here to buy May We Be Forgiven from Booktopia,
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Flight Behaviour

by Barbara Kingsolver

About the Author

Click here to buy Like Flight Behaviour from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Red Book

by Deborah Copaken Kogan

A college reunion, 20 years after graduation. Can one weekend of nostalgia change some people’s lives forever?

Clover, Addison, Mia and Jane were college roommates until their graduation in 1989. Now, twenty years later, their lives are in free fall. Clover, once a securities broker with Lehman Brothers, living the Manhattan dream, is out of a job, newly married and fretting about her chances of having a baby. Addison’s marriage to a novelist with writers’ block is as stale as her artistic ‘career’. Mia’s acting ambitions never got off the ground and she now stays home with her four children, renovating and acquiring faster than her Hollywood director husband can pay the bills. Jane, once the Paris bureau chief for a newspaper, now the victim of budget cuts, has been blindsided by different sorts of loss.

The four friends have kept up with one another via the red book, a class report published every five years, in which alumni write brief updates about their lives. But there’s the story we tell the world and then there’s the real story, as the classmates arriving at their twentieth reunion with their families, their histories, their dashed dreams and secret longings, will discover over the course of an epoch-ending, score-settling, unforgettable weekend.

About the Author

Deborah Copaken Kogan is the author of Between Here and April, a novel and Shutterbabe, the bestselling memoir about her years as a war photographer. Her photographs have been published in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, L’Express, Liberation and GEO. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Elle, O: the Oprah Magazine, More, Slate and Paris Match, among others. She lives in Harlem, New York, with her husband and three children.

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Bring Up the Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

About the Author

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Lamb

by Bonnie Nadzam

Lamb traces the self-discovery of David Lamb, a narcissistic middle aged man with a tendency toward dishonesty, in the weeks following the disintegration of his marriage and the death of his father. Hoping to regain some faith in his own goodness, he turns his attention to Tommie, an awkward and unpopular eleven-year-old girl. Lamb is convinced that he can help her avoid a destiny of apathy and emptiness, and even comes to believe that his devotion to Tommie is in her best interest. But when Lamb decides to abduct a willing Tommie for a road trip from Chicago to the Rockies, planning to initiate her into the beauty of the mountain wilderness, they are both shaken in ways neither of them expects.
Lamb is a masterful exploration of the dynamics of love and dependency that challenges the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood, confronts preconceived notions about conventional morality, and exposes mankind’s eroded relationship with nature.

About the Author

Bonnie Nadzam was born in Cleveland, went school in Chicago and has moved continually westward ever since. She holds a BA in English Literature and Environmental Studies from Carleton College; a Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University; and an MA and PhD from The University of Southern California and has taught creative writing at Colorado College. Her short stories have been published in Granta Magazine, Orion Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Coffin Factory, and several other magazines.

Click here to buy Lamb from Booktopia,
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Ignorance

by Michèle Roberts

After every war there are stories that are locked away like bluebottles in drawers and kept silent. But sometimes the past can return: in the smell of carbolic soap, in whispers darting through a village after mass, in the colour of an undelivered letter. Jeanne Nerin and Marie-Angele Baudry grow up, side by side yet apart, in the village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angele is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her own piety and rightful place in society. Jeanne’s mother washes clothes for a living. She used to be a Jew until this became too dangerous. Jeanne does not think twice about grasping the slender chances life throws at her. Marie-Angele does not grasp; she aspires to a future of comfort and influence.

When war falls out of the sky, along with it tumbles a new, grown-up world. The village must think on its feet, play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules. Not even the dubious hero with ‘business contacts’ who sweeps Marie-Angele off her feet. Not even the reclusive artist living alone with his sensual, red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth is all too easily buried under a pyramid of recriminations.

Ignorance is a mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgment, bringing to life a people at war in a way that is at once lyrical and shocking.

About the Author

Michèle Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4′s Book of the Week in June 2007. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud- stories of sex and love (2010). Half-English and half-French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Click here to buy Ignorance from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal

Adam has just proposed to his childhood sweetheart. Rachel is everything he has ever wanted – pretty, kind, thoughtful, safe and sure of her place in the world. Her family loves him, they share the same friends, in fact they are a perfect young couple set for a life of married bliss and comfort in north-west London. But on to the scene comes Ellie, Rachel’s younger, sexier but vulnerable and mysterious cousin from New York.

Despite his contentment, Adam finds himself uncontrollably drawn to Ellie – her beauty is overwhelming, her history is compelling, and she comes to represent all that is missing from his life: excitement, curiosity, freedom. And so his struggle begins – should he turn towards a new life of adventure and discovery, risking all that he holds dear, or stay true to love, responsibility and the ties of his community, giving up the possibility of any alternative?

The Innocents is an age-old tale of love, temptation, confusion, commitment and coming to terms with the choices we’ve made, that – in a wry, humorous, affectionate voice – tells the story of one young man’s pre-wedding panic as he grapples with the conflicts between responsibility and passion, security and freedom, tradition and independence.

Francesca Segal’s triumphant debut invites us in to a close-knit community, where a universal drama unfolds, with assurance and grace.

About the Author

Francesca Segal was born in London in 1980. Brought up between the UK and America, she studied at Oxford University before becoming a journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, and The Jewish Chronicle, amongst others. She has been a features writer at Tatler, and for three years wrote the Debut Fiction column in The Observer.

Click here to buy The Innocents from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

A wildly imaginative, laugh-out-loud but also very poignant novel.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a compulsively readable, irresistibly written, deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s place in the world.

About the Author

Maria Semple worked in Los Angeles as a television writer for 15 years, working on hit shows including Ellen, Saturday Night Live, Mad About You and Arrested Development. She lives in Seattle.

Click here to buy Where’d You Go, Bernadette from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Honour

by Elif Shafak

From the award-winning author of “The Forty Rules of Love” and “The Bastard of Istanbul Elif Shafak”, “Honour” is a novel of love, betrayal and a clash of cultures. “My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten…” Leaving her twin sister behind, Pembe leaves Turkey for love – following her husband Adem to London. There the Topraks hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. Yet, no matter how far they travel, the traditions and beliefs the Topraks left behind stay with them – carried in the blood.

Their eldest is the boy Iskender, who remembers Turkey and feels betrayal deeper than most. His sister is Esma, who is loyal and true despite the pain and heartache. And, lastly, Yunus, who was born in London, and is shy and different. Trapped by the mistakes of the past, the Toprak children find their lives shattered and transformed by a brutal act of murder…A powerful novel set in Turkey and London in the 1970s, “Honour” explores pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the trials of the immigrant, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that too often tears families apart.

About The Author

Elif Shafak is the acclaimed author of “The Bastard of Istanbul” and “The Forty Rules of Love” and is the most widely read female novelist in Turkey. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is a contributor for “The Telegraph”, “Guardian” and the “New York Times” and her TED talk on the politics of fiction has received 500 000 views since July 2010. She is married with two children and divides her time between Istanbul and London.

Click here to buy Honour from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

NW

by Zadie Smith

Hobbes, Smith, Bentham, Locke and Russell.

Five identical blocks make up the Caldwell housing estate in North West London.

Then one April afternoon a stranger comes to Leah’s door, seeking help, disturbing the peace, and forcing Leah out of her isolation . . .

About the Author

Click here to buy NW from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Alif the Unseen

by G. Willow Wilson

Welcome to the Empty Quarter, the domain of Djinn, ghouls, demons and the effrit who take the shapes of beasts. You used to walk among us, and we among you. Now things are different. Now we are Unseen.

Alif is a 23-year-old Arab/Indian hacker working in the Arab Emirates. His job is to provide security to enemies of the Arab states, ranging from pornographers to militant Islamists. Alif has fallen in love with the beguiling Intisar, an aristocratic woman he meets online. But their budding love affair is cruelly ended when her father arranges a marriage for her with a man of her class… a man who turns out to be the state’s leading censor, a shadowy and powerful figure known only as ‘the Hand’. The state security forces come after Alif with guns drawn, and he must go underground, trying all the while to fight back against a piece of code he wrote to protect his lover but which the Hand is using to create the most sophisticated state surveillance the world has ever known.

As their final communication, Intisar sends the heartbroken Alif a mysterious old book. Bound in what looks like human skin, and titled The Thousand and One Days, Alif soon realizes that this token of affection is actually a dangerous source of old world magic. And as the keeper of this amulet – the secret book of the jinn – Alif is about to become a wanted fugitive from both the corporeal and the celestial worlds…A life and death struggle ensues as the might of heaven and earth is unleashed.

About the Author

G. Willow Wilson was born in New Jersey in 1982 and raised in Colorado. Shortly after graduating from Boston University, Willow moved to Cairo, where she converted to Islam. She divides her time between Cairo and Seattle. Wilson’s graphic novel, Cairo, was named a Best Graphic Novel of 2007 by Publishers Weekly, the Edmonton Journal/CanWest News, and Comics Worth Reading. Wilson is also the author of two comics series: Air, which was nominated for the 2009 Eisner Award for Best New Series; and Vixen, winner of the 2009 Glyph Comics Fan Award for Best Comic; she is the first Muslim writer to be recognised for either award.

Click here to buy Alif the Unseen from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

Filed under: Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Women's Fiction, Fiction, Literary Prizes | Tagged: 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction, A Trick I Learned From Dead Men, A.M. Homes, Alif the Unseen, Andrew Cattanach, Barbara Kingsolver, Bonnie Nadzam, Bring up the Bodies, Carrie Tiffany, Deborah Copaken Kogan, Elif Shafak, Emily Perkins, Flight Behaviour, Francesca Segal, G. Willow Wilson, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hilary Mantel, Honour, How Should A Person Be?, Ignorance, Kate Atkinson, Kitty Aldridge, Lamb, Life After Life, M.L. Stedman, Maria Semple, Mateship with Birds, May We Be Forgiven, Michèle Roberts, NW, Ros Barber, Shani Boianjiu, Sheila Heti, The Forrests, THE INNOCENTS, The Light Between Oceans, The Marlowe Papers, The People of Forever are Not Afraid, The Red Book, Where'd You Go Bernadette, Zadie Smith | 1 Comment »

The 2013 Stella Prize Longlist announced

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Andrew Cattanach

The longlist for the 2013 Stella Prize has just been announced, containing a great mix of exciting new talents and familiar faces.

Named after one of Australia’s most important female authors, Stella Maria Miles Franklin, the Stella Prize is worth $50,000, and both fiction and non-fiction books are eligible.

The 2013 Stella Prize shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 20 March. The inaugural Stella Prize will be awarded in Melbourne on the evening of Tuesday 16 April.

Don’t miss the chance to grab a copy of these fantastic books and judge them for yourself with the help of Booktopia.

Floundering

by Romy Ash

Tom and Jordy have been living with their gran since the day their mother, Loretta, left them on her doorstep and disappeared.

Now Loretta’s returned, and she wants her boys back.

Tom and Jordy hit the road with Loretta in her beat-up car. The family of three journeys across the country, squabbling, bonding, searching and reconnecting.

But Loretta isn’t mother material. She’s broke, unreliable, lost. And there’s something else that’s not quite right with this reunion.

This beautifully written and gripping debut is as moving as it is frightening, and as heartbreaking as it is tender.

About the Author

Floundering is her first novel.

Click here to buy Floundering from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mazin Grace

by Dylan Coleman

Winner of the 2011 David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writing

Growing up on the Mission isn’t easy for clever Grace Oldman. When her classmates tease her for not having a father, she doesn’t know what to say. Pappa Neddy says her dad is the Lord God in Heaven, but that doesn’t help when the Mission kids call her a bastard. As Grace slowly pieces together clues that might lead to answers, she struggles to find a place in a community that rejects her for reasons she doesn’t understand.

In Mazin Grace, Dylan Coleman fictionalises her mother’s childhood at the Koonibba Lutheran Mission in South Australia in the 1940s and 50s. Woven through the narrative are the powerful, rhythmic sounds of Aboriginal English and Kokatha language.

Mazin Grace is the inspirational story of a feisty girl who refuses to be told who she is, determined to uncover the truth for herself.

About the Author

Dylan Coleman is a Kokatha-Greek woman who grew up in Thevenard, on the far west coast of South Australia. She has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Adelaide, where she teaches Indigenous health, and her short stories have been published in Southerly and various anthologies. For over twenty years Dylan has worked across Aboriginal education, health, land rights, and the Arts, with a focus on Aboriginal community engagement and social justice. Dylan lives on the outskirts of Adelaide with her partner and son.

Click here to buy Mazin Grace from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Burial

by Courtney Collins

A breathtakingly brilliant debut novel in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy – inspired by Australia’s last bushranger, young woman Jessie Hickman.

It is the dawn of the twentieth century in Australia and a woman has done an unspeakable thing.

Twenty-two-year-old Jessie has served a two-year sentence for horse rustling. As a condition of her release she is apprenticed to Fitzgerald ‘Fitz’ Henry, who wants a woman to allay his loneliness in a valley populated by embittered ex-soldiers. Fitz wastes no time in blackmailing Jessie and involving her in his business of horse rustling and cattle duffing.

When Fitz is wounded in an accident he hires Aboriginal stockman, Jack Brown, to steal horses with Jessie. Soon both Jack Brown and Jessie are struggling against the oppressive and deadening grip of Fitz.

One catastrophic night turns Jessie’s life on its head and she must flee for her life. From her lonely outpost, the mountains beckon as a place to escape. First she must bury the evidence. But how do you bury the evidence when the evidence is part of yourself?

Inspired by the life of Jessie Hickman, legendary twentieth-century bushranger, The Burial is a stunning debut novel, a work of haunting originality and power.

About the Author

The Burial is the debut novel of Courtney Collins. It has been optioned for a feature film by Pure Pictures. Courtney’s next work in progress, The Walkman Mix has already received attention through the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award 2011. Courtney grew up in the Hunter Valley in NSW. She now lives on the Goulburn River in regional Victoria.

Click here to buy The Burial from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The People Smuggler

by Robin de Crespigny

Winner of the Queensland Literary Awards 2012 – Non-Fiction

The True Story of Ali Al Jenabi, the ‘Oskar Schlindler of Asia. At once a non-fiction thriller and a moral maze, this is one man’s epic story of trying to find a safe place in the world.

When Ali Al Jenabi flees Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers, he is forced to leave his family behind in Iraq. What follows is an incredible international odyssey through the shadow world of fake passports, crowded camps and illegal border crossings, living every day with excruciating uncertainty about what the next will bring.

Through betrayal, triumph, misfortune – even romance and heartbreak – Ali is sustained by his fierce love of freedom and family. Continually pushed to the limits of his endurance, eventually he must confront what he has been forced to become.

With enormous power and insight, The People Smuggler tells a story of daily heroism, bringing to life the forces that drive so many people to put their lives in unscrupulous hands. It is an utterly gripping portrait of a man cut loose from the protections of civilisation, attempting to retain his dignity and humanity while taking whatever path he can out of an impossible position.

‘An engrossing account of a figure seen by some as saviour and others as criminal. A significant book.’ Thomas Keneally

About the Author

Robin de Crespigny has spent three years working with Ali Al Jenabi to write his story. She is a film maker and lives in Sydney. This is her first book.

Click here to buy The People Smuggler from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Questions of Travel

by Michelle de Kretser

A dazzling, compassionate and deeply moving novel from one of world literature’s rising stars.

About the Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.

Click here to buy Questions of Travel from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Sufficient Grace

by Amy Espeseth

Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Wisconsin, part of an isolated religious community. The girls’ lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature – the harsh winters, the hunting seasons, the harvesting of crops – and by their families’ beliefs. Beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk.

The Ruth learns that Naomi harbours a terrible secret. She searched for solace in the mysteries of the natural world: broken fawns, migrating birds, and the strange fish deep beneath the ice. Can the girls’ prayers for deliverance be answered?

Sufficient Grace is a story of lost of innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. It is at once devastating and beautiful, and ultimately transcendent.

‘Simply brilliant. Haunting, gritty and emotionally dark.’ Jessica Au

‘A novel of heart-rending beauty. Seldom have grace and nature, spirit and flesh, spoken to each other so wonderfully.’ Michael McGirr

‘As disturbing as they are, there are stories that demand to be written. This is such a story, delivered by a writer of remarkable talent. Long after reading Sufficient Grace you will not forget it, and will be left with wanting more from Amy Espeseth.’
– Tony Birch

About the Author

Born in rural Wisconsin, Amy Espeseth lives in Melbourne, having immigrated to Australia in the late 1990s. A writer, publisher and academic, she is the recipient of the 2007 Felix Meyer Scholarship in Literature, the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, the 2010 QUT Postgraduate Creative Writing Prize, and the 2012 CAL/Scribe Fiction Prize. Her fiction has appeared in various journals including Wet Ink, antithesis, and The Death Mook.

Click here to buy Sufficient Grace from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Sunlit Zone

by Lisa Jacobson

The Sunlit Zone is a moving elegy of love and loss, admirable for its narrative sweep and the family dynamic that drives it. A risk-taking work of rare, imaginative power.

“The Sunlit Zone combines the narrative drive of the novel with the perfect pitch of true poetry. A darkly futuristic vision shot through with bolts of light. Brilliant, poignant, disconcerting.” Adrian Hyland

“This novel in verse, at once magical and irresistible, draws us in to a vivid future. In Lisa Jacobson’s telling, the Australian fascination with salt water and sea change is made over anew. Romance holds hands with science and takes to the ocean.”  Chris Wallace-Crabbe
About Lisa Jacobson

About the Author

Lisa Jacobson’s The Sunlit Zone was short-listed for the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. An earlier poetry collection, Hair & Skin & Teeth, was shortlisted for the National Book Council Awards. She has studied literature at Melbourne and La Trobe Universities, and remains an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe. She shares a bush block in Melbourne with her partner and daughter.

Click here to buy The Sunlit Zone from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Like A House On Fire

by Cate Kennedy

From prizewinning short-story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots.

In Like a House on Fire, Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies and injustices and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour. In ‘Laminex and Mirrors’, a young woman working as a cleaner in a hospital helps an elderly patient defy doctor’s orders. In ‘Cross Country’, a jilted lover manages to misinterpret her ex’s new life. And in ‘Ashes’, a son accompanies his mother on a journey to scatter his father’s remains, while lifelong resentments simmer in the background. Cate Kennedy’s poignant short stories find the beauty and tragedy in illness and mortality, life and love.

About the Author

Cate Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely. Her first collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. She is also the author of a travel memoir, Sing, and Don’t Cry, and the poetry collections Joyflight, Signs of Other Fires and The Taste of River Water, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2011. She lives on a secluded bend of the Broken River in north-east Victoria.

Click here to buy Like A House On Fire from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Sea Hearts

by Margo Lanagan

A mesmerising selkie novel from multi-award winning, internationally acclaimed Australian author, Margo Lanagan – one of the most exciting voices in speculative fiction.

A HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL NOVEL FROM THE WINNER OF FOUR WORLD FANTASY AWARDS.

‘Why would I? People are uneasy enough with me – if I start bringing up sea-wives, they’ll take against me good and proper.’
‘It could be secret.’
‘Could it?’

Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire and revenge, of loyalty, heartache and human weakness, and of the unforeseen consequences of all-consuming love.
‘Lanagan is in a class of her own.’ The Weekend Australian

About the Author

Margo Lanagan is an internationally acclaimed writer of novels and short stories. Her collections of short stories have garnered many awards, nominations and shortlistings. Black Juice was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, won two World Fantasy Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Young Adult Fiction. Red Spikes won the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare title, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her novel Tender Morsels won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Margo lives in Sydney.

Click here to buy Sea Hearts from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

The Mind of a Thief

by Patti Miller

A superior memoir by an accomplished writer at the height of her powers

For 40,000 years the Central NSW area of Wellington was Aboriginal – Wiradjuri – land. Following the arrival of white men, it became a penal settlement, mission station, gold-mining town and farming centre with a history of white comfort and black marginalisation. In the late 20th century, it was also the subject of the first post-Mabo Native Title claim, bringing new hope – and new controversy – to the area and its people.

Wiradjuri land is also where author Patti Miller was born and, mid-life, it begins to exert a compelling emotional pull, demanding her return. Post-children, having lived a dream life in Paris, it is hard for her to understand, or ignore, and so she is drawn into the story at the heart of Australian identity – who are we in relation to our beloved but stolen country?

Wellington and the Wiradjuri people are the main characters – and in revealing their complex narratives, Patti uncovers her own. Are her connections to this place through her convict forefathers, or through another, secret history? She sets out on a journey of exploration and takes us with her. Black and white politics, the processes of colonisation, family mythologies, generational conflict and the power of place are evoked as Patti weaves a story that is very personal and, at the same time, a universal story of country and belonging.

The Mind of a Thief is about identity, history, place and belonging and, perhaps most of all, about how we create ourselves through our stories.

About the Author

Patti Miller was raised on a farm in central western NSW and has worked teaching writing for over twenty years. Her many books include Writing Your Life (Allen & Unwin, 1994, 2001), The Last One Who Remembers (Allen & Unwin, 1997), Child (Allen & Unwin, 1998), Whatever the Gods Do (Random House, 2003) and The Memoir Book (Allen & Unwin, 2007). In 2012 she will teach at the innovative Faber Academy in Sydney.

Click here to buy The Mind of a Thief from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

An Opening: Twelve Love Stories about Art

by Stephanie Radok

Artist and writer Stephanie Radok possesses a unique international perspective. For over twenty years she has written about and witnessed the emergence of contemporary Aboriginal art and the responses of Australian art to global diasporas.

In An opening: Twelve love stories about art, Stephanie Radok takes us on a walk with her dog and finds that it is possible to re-imagine the suburb as the site of epiphanies and attachments.

Reviews

‘Art wants to enter our lives, yet it is a rare art writer who lets it do that. Writing with full personal disclosure, Stephanie Radok lets us in on her secret. Art can inspire love, and a whole host of other unruly emotions. An Opening is a confession, a provocation, a celebration – a highly original, much-needed book in a field that too often prefers to be offputting and hermetic. A revelation, a gem.’ – Nicholas Jose

‘In An Opening Stephanie Radok engages sensuously and poetically with the art she has seen from her place in the suburbs of Adelaide and as a citizen of the world. Her contribution to Australian art is idiosyncratic and determinedly marginal. I once titled an essay on Australianness “The margins strike back”. Australian art needs more margins.’ – Daniel Thomas

‘Peppered with lovely anecdotes and a gentle wisdom, An Opening draws the reader into a wonderful discussion about art, culture, and identity. Radok’s style is so accessible that she makes thinking critically about art a less rarefied occupation it might otherwise seem.’ – Lucy Clark, Weekend Australian Review

‘A meditative and enriching read.’ – Sarah Braybrooke, Artshub

‘It has been a rare pleasure to review this book; the philosophy and spirituality Stephanie Radok expresses in relation to Aboriginal art are enlightening.’ – Paul Newbury, Bonzer

‘Stephanie’s engagement with art is sentimental, poignant, deeply reflective and a revelation for the uninitiated! – PS News

Click here to buy An Opening from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Mateship with Bird

by Carrie Tiffany

About the Author

Click here to buy Mateship with Birds from Booktopia, Australia’s Local Bookstore

Filed under: Australian Author, Book Recommendations, Book Talk, Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Women's Fiction, Fiction, Literary Prizes | Tagged: Amy Espeseth, Carrie Tiffany, Cate Kennedy, Courtney Collins, Dylan Coleman, Lisa Jacobson, Margo Lanagan, Michelle de Kretser, Patti Miller, Robin de Crespigny, Romy Ash, Stella Prize 2013, Stephanie Radok | 4 Comments »

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Floundering

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by Michelle de Kretser

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The Beloved

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The Mountain

by Drusilla Modjeska

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Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson

May We Be Forgiven

by A.M. Homes

Flight Behaviour

by Barbara Kingsolver

Bring Up the Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

NW

by Zadie Smith

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Mateship With Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

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Older Readers

The Ink Bridge by Neil Grant

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

The Shiny Guys by Doug MacLeod

Creepy & Maud by Dianne Touchell

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail

Younger Readers

Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French

Other Brother by Simon French

After by Morris Gleitzman

Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett

Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend by Steven Herrick

The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk by Glenda Millard & Stephen Michael King

Early Childhood

The Terrible Suitcase by Emma Allen & Freya Blackwood

With Nan by Tania Coz & Karen Blair

The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog by Sue DeGennaro

Too Many Elephants in This House by Ursula Dubosarsky & Andrew Joyner

It’s a Miroocool! by Christine Harris & Ann James

Peggy by Anna Walker

Picture Books

The Coat by Julie Hunt, Illustrated by Ron Brooks

Tanglewood by Margaret Wild, Illustrated by Vivienne Goodman

Sophie Scott Goes South by Alison Lester

Lightning Jack by Glenda Millard, Illustrated by Patricia Mullins

A Day to Remember by Jackie French, Illustrated by Mark Wilson

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Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000) and nominees for the People’s Choice Award

The Voyage by Murray Bail

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

Foal’s Bread by Gillian Mears

Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

Animal People by Charlotte Wood

Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)

Exile: The Lives and Hopes of Werner Pelz by Roger Averill

Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson

Dark Night: Walking with McCahon by Martin Emond

The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage

The Ink Bridge
by Neil Grant

Sea Hearts
by Margo Lanagan

The Shiny Guys
by Doug MacLeod

Creepy & Maud
by Dianne Touchell

Friday Brown
by Vikki Wakefield

The Wrong Boy
by Suzy Zail

Pennies for Hitler
by Jackie French

Other Brother
by Simon French

After
by Morris Gleitzman

Children of the King
by Sonya Hartnett

Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend
by Steven Herrick

The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk
by Glenda Millard & Stephen Michael King

The Terrible Suitcase
by Emma Allen & Freya Blackwood

With Nan
by Tania Coz & Karen Blair

The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog
by Sue DeGennaro

Too Many Elephants in This House
by Ursula Dubosarsky & Andrew Joyner

It’s a Miroocool!
by Christine Harris & Ann James

Peggy
by Anna Walker

The Coat
by Julie Hunt, Illustrated by Ron Brooks

Tanglewood
by Margaret Wild, Illustrated by Vivienne Goodman

Sophie Scott Goes South
by Alison Lester

Lightning Jack
by Glenda Millard, Illustrated by Patricia Mullins

A Day to Remember
by Jackie French, Illustrated by Mark Wilson