Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy's coming of age, set in 1980s Australia and infused with the originality, charm, pathos, and heart of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The mind can take you anywhere you want to go. Eli Bell's life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in Eli's life is Slim--a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes--who watches over Eli and August, his silent genius of an older brother. Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a seedy suburb populated by Polish and Vietnamese refugees, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism. Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli's path--most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane's legendary drug dealer. But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom--all before starting high school. A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton's debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience. ...Show more

Step up, Mrs Dugdale - A Novel Based on a True Story by Lynne Leonhardt

$30.00 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

In 1867, Henrietta Augusta Dugdale, dairywoman of Queenscliff, is pushed to breaking point and leaves her fourteen-year marriage. With access to her children denied, she enters the freethinking world of Melbourne bohemia and sets out to change the law that casts women as property, with no legal rights o f their own.A fearless crusader for women's justice, the indefatigable 'Mrs D.' outclasses those who try to silence or belittle her, all the while haunted by the loss of her three sons, the dark undercurrents of the past and the mysterious fate of her first love.From newfound facts and family memorabilia, Lynne Leonhardt has created a luminous tale of love, loss, triumph and fortitude, set against the evocative coastal landscape of Port Phillip Bay and the wonder-city of Melbourne at the height of the gold-rush boom. Step Up, Mrs Dugdale is an unforgettable portrait of a pioneering suffragist - a hero for women, a trailblazer for her time. ...Show more

The Weekend by Charlotte Wood

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

RICHARD GLOVER REVIEWS: ''I love writers who break their own mould with each book. Charlotte’s last book, The Natural Way of Things, was darkly compelling; this has more sunshine plus wonderfully flawed characters in whom you may find reflections of yourself.'' People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn't true. The graveyard, the stony dirt - that's what it was like now. They knew each other better than their own siblings, but Sylvie's death had opened up strange caverns of distance between them. Four older women with a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her? They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual, and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for Christmas at Sylvie's old beach house - not for festivities, but to clean the place out before it is sold. Without Sylvie to maintain the group's delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface - and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good. The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we're forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book, a celebration of tenderness and friendship that is nothing short of a masterpiece. ...Show more

Octet by James Wieland

$29.95 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

  ‘Michael O’Connell is dead!’  Spanning the week of his burial, from his obituary to the wake, eight characters whose lives – some intimately, some more obliquely – have intersected his, slowly open up the carefully constructed compartments of his very private, very financially successful, life, even as they reveal themselves.  A luminous story of disclosure and concealment, of love and its opposites explored in their various tones and shades, and of those who embrace life’s alternatives and those who deny them, Octet’s canvas is broad, spreading from the Wicklow Stud in the southern hinterland of New South Wales to the battlefields of New  Guinea, from the ballet stages of Europe to the Business world in London, from Edinburgh to Sydney, in a timespan which reaches from the Second World War to the turn of the century. Why did Michael make the gift of the cello?   ...Show more

Lucky Child The Secret by Chelinay Gates

$35.00 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

Bruny by Heather Rose

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

How far would your government go? A right-wing US president has withdrawn America from the Middle East and the UN. Daesh has a thoroughfare to the sea and China is Australia's newest ally. When a bomb goes off in remote Tasmania, Astrid Coleman agrees to return home to help her brother before an upcomi ng election. But this is no simple task. Her brother and sister are on either side of politics, the community is full of conspiracy theories, and her father is quoting Shakespeare. Only on Bruny does the world seem sane. Until Astrid discovers how far the government is willing to go. Bruny is a searing, subversive, brilliant novel about family, love, loyalty and the new world order.   ...Show more

Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko

$29.95 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

Winner of the Miles Franklin Award 2019! A dark and funny new novel from the multi-award-winning author of Mullumbimby. Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble - but then trouble is Kerry's middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible.   ...Show more

A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

Do not believe too quickly... What if Elizabeth Macarthur-wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney-had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follows is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented. Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life-marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart, the search for power in a society that gave her none-with spirit, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past- devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. That was their public face-here's what one of them really thought. At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times- the seductive appeal of false stories. Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Macarthur's life and the violent colonial world she navigated are secrets and lies with the dangerous power to shape reality. A Room Made of Leaves is the internationally acclaimed author Kate Grenville's first novel in almost a decade. It is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand that gives the past the piercing immediacy of the present.   ...Show more

The Earth Does Not Get Fat by Julia Prendergast

$24.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

"A tale of dark family secrets, yet also a tale imbued with awe and wonder at life's mysteries. Prendergast vests her traumatised characters with dignity, and writes them with deep affection and understanding. Poetic, yet earthed, driven by a raw intensity, this impressive debut novel burns with love."- -Arnold Zable *** "A lyrical portrait of love among the ruins."--Amanda Lohrey *** She looked like someone who has had a hard life and no money to take care of herself, like a broken woman at the end of the world, dead on her feet, skin slapped over her bones like white paint, old white paint, slightly yellow. Her shoulders and collarbones were sticking out of her skin like ... like nothing. There is nothing I know that is as awful as her bones poking out of her dirty yellow chicken-skin. Chelsea doesn't attend school much any more. She is carer for her mother who is sinking further into depression after a trauma, and her Grandad who has slipped into full-blown dementia. Her father is long gone; others are shadowy memories-intangible like dreams. Barely known ghosts make for strange company. Then a parcel arrives, and in it are questions-about her mother and her past self, their shared histories, and the people and place from which they've run. "The Earth Does Not Get Fat" is a powerful and gut-wrenching debut about intense suffering and love-fierce, searing love. Subject: Fiction] ...Show more

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

Let me tell you about our brother. The fourth Dunbar boy named Clay. Everything happened to him. We were all of us changed through him. The Dunbar boys bring each other up in a house run by their own rules. A family of ramshackle tragedy - their mother is dead, their father has fled - they love and figh t, and learn to reckon with the adult world. It is Clay, the quiet one, who will build a bridge; for his family, for his past, for his sins. He builds a bridge to transcend humanness. To survive. A miracle and nothing less. Markus Zusak makes his long-awaited return with a profoundly heartfelt and inventive novel about a family held together by stories, and a young life caught in the current: a boy in search of greatness, as a cure for a painful past. Yes, always for us there was a brother, and he was the one - the one of us amongst five of us - who took all of it on his shoulder. ...Show more

The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

"Subtle, disarming and insightful" Rosalie HamA magnificent novel about fate, Australia and what it means to be human... it just happens to be narrated by a galah called Lucky. It's 1969 and a remote coastal town in Western Australia is poised to play a pivotal part in the moon landing. Perched on the r ed dunes of its outskirts looms the great Dish: a relay for messages between Apollo 11 and Houston, Texas.Radar technician Evan Johnson and his colleagues stare, transfixed, at the moving images on the console -although his glossy young wife, Linda, seems distracted. Meanwhile the people of Port Badminton have gathered to watch Armstrong's small step on a single television sitting centre stage in the old theatre. The Kelly family, a crop of redheads, sit in rare silence. Roo shooters at the back of the hall squint through their rifles to see the tiny screen. I'm in my cage on the Kelly's back verandah. I sit here, unheard, underestimated, biscuit crumbs on my beak. But fate is a curious thing. For just as Evan Johnson's story is about to end (and perhaps with a giant leap), my story prepares to take flight...SHORTLISTED FOR THE READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION 2018PRAISE FOR THE LUCKY GALAH"A fresh and surprising novel - thoroughly Australian, joyful and magnificently original" Charlotte Wood, author The Natural Way of Things"This book is a bundle of Australian kook ready to disarm, charm and move its readers. Embrace it." Booktopia"This clever and enjoyable book will appeal to a broad range of readers." Books + Publishing"The Lucky Galah is a bold and astoundingly brave novel..." The Newtown Review of Books"It is a book that is at once humorous and heartfelt, and evokes a specific era in Australian history very well." Readings ...Show more

Sweetness and Light by Liam Pieper

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Literature

An intoxicating, unsettling story of the battle between light and dark, love and lust, morality and corruptionIndia, monsoon season.Connor, an Australian expat with a brutal past, spends his time running low-stakes scams on tourists in a sleepy beachside town. Sasha, an American in search of spiritual g uidance, heads to an isolated ashram in the hope of mending a broken heart.When one of Connor’s grifts goes horribly wrong, it sets in motion a chain of events that brings the two lost souls together – and as they try to navigate a world of gangsters, gurus and secret agendas, they begin to realise that within the ashram’s utopian community, something is deeply, deeply wrong . . .Racing from the beaches of Goa to the streets of Delhi to the jungles of Tamil Nadu, Sweetness and Light is an intoxicating, unsettling story of the battle between light and dark, love and lust, morality and corruption. This is an explosive and unforgettable novel that confirms Liam Pieper's place as one of Australia's finest, sharpest writers. ...Show more