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Drama
From the Author of The Dry and The Lost Man – Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away.
A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte, who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire. The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.
Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.
From the author of Jasper Jones. Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other.
The unforgettable story of a mother and son fleeing a drug-cartel to cross the US-Mexico border.
‘I couldn’t put it down. I’ll never stop thinking about it’ – Ann Patchett
‘One hell of a novel about a good woman on the run with her beautiful boy’ – Stephen King
Fear keeps them running. Hope keeps them alive.
Those in need of peace will find it between the covers of this elegant picture book for adults and children
(The New York Times)
‘Feeling a little blue? Meet the new Winnie the Pooh.’ The Daily Mail
‘A wonderful work of art and a wonderful window into the human heart’ Richard Curtis
Boy swallows universe by Trent Dalton
A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. (Goodreads)
Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.
Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.
‘A complex, big-hearted, multi-generational Australian epic’ (Good Weekend)
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 fight, 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.
The sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz
In 1942 Cilka Klein is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair, and forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival. (Goodreads)
Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch’s mentor, the man who trained him – new from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly (Goodreads)
A convicted killer. A gifted thief. A vicious crime boss. A disillusioned cop. Together they’re a missing girl’s only hope. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected surgeon in Los Angeles, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean to win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate, Sneak Lawlor, begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line. Joined by LA’s most feared underworld figure, Ada Maverick, the crew of criminals bring outlaw tactics to the search for Dayly. (publisher)
When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days. Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect. He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective? As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…
Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity. (Booktopia)
Winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.
The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies – a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic. (Booktopia)
Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it. (Goodreads)
The Amarna Age book No. 2
Blending history and fantasy, The Amarna Age series is set in 18th Dynasty Egypt where the old gods have been worshipped for thousands of years and magic is a matter of belief. For readers of dark fantasy who enjoy an historical setting. (Goodreads)
This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz- Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable. (Goodreads)
The hero of The Poet and The Scarecrow is back in the new thriller from Michael Connelly. Jack McEvoy, the journalist who never backs down, tracks a serial killer who has been operating completely under the radar – until now.
At once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps. (book cover)
The Kingdom is a simmering and complex thriller full of unexpected twists, devastating family legacies and an ever-growing body count. (publisher)
Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland. They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last chance for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects. (Book cover)
Non-Fiction and Biographies
In this luminous memoir, Mary McAleese traces that astonishing arc: from the tight streets of north Belfast, to a professorship in Dublin while still in her twenties, behind-the-scenes work on the peace process, and two triumphant terms as President of Ireland. (Book Depository)
941.508 MCA
In a world that tells women they’re either not enough or too much this book is an accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. (Publisher)
305.42 GIV
Why some children struggle and how all can thrive.
From one of the world’s foremost researchers and pioneers of paediatric health—a book that fully explores a revolutionary discovery about childhood development, parenting, and the key to helping all children find happiness and success.
His work has revealed there are two different kinds of children: the “dandelion” child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the “orchid” child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile) who, given the right support, can thrive as much, if not more, than other children. (Goodreads)
155.4 BOY
Spelling It Out aims to ease anxiety and crush the myth that good spelling comes naturally. Good spelling comes from good teaching. Based on Misty Adoniou’s extensive research into spelling learning and instruction, this book encourages children and adults to nurture a curiosity about words, discover their history and, in so doing, understand the logic behind the way they are spelled. (Booktopia)
428.1 ADO
A series of intimate conversations with some of today’s most iconic and inspirational women : Dr Gill Hicks- Survivor of 2005 London bombings and Founder of M.A.D For Peace, Maggie Beer- Culinary Icon, Layne Beachley – 7 times Surfing World Champion, Karen J Scott – Survivor 2011 Christchurch earthquakes, Moira Kelly – International Humanitarian and Mum to conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna, Michelle Bridges- Celebrity Fitness Trainer. Author, Beatrice Imbert discovers the real women behind the name and the fame and shares some of the defining moments that have propelled these women to success but also shows us that we can all strive for an extraordinary life.
Twenty-three Australian grandmothers reflect on their diverse experiences. Maggie Beer is grateful that she is a better grandmother than she was a mother; Alison Lester confesses she has become so busy as a grandmother that she barely has time to ride her horse; Ramona Koval worries what sort of world her grandchildren will inherit; Ali Cobby Eckermann reveals the pain of being a Stolen-Generations grandmother. Love is the emotion that connects them all, but there are so many ways of being a grandmother that the range of feeling in this anthology may surprise you.
When Jeremy Bentham proposed that government should run “for the greatest benefit of the greatest number,” he posed two problems: what is happiness and how can we measure it? With the rise of positive psychology, freakonimics, behavioural economics, endless TED talks, the happiness manifesto, the Happiness Index, the tyranny of customer service, the emergence of the quantified self movement, we have become a culture obsessed with measuring our supposed satisfaction.
In Truth-Telling, influential historian Henry Reynolds pulls the rug from legal and historical assumptions, with his usual sharp eye and rigour, in a book that’s about the present as much as the past. His work shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.
305.899 REY
Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’. (publisher)
940.53 JAK
On awe wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark. A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness – the ‘light within’ that Julia Baird calls ‘phosphorescence’ – which will sustain us even through the darkest times. (Goodreads)
158 BAI
Queensland was one of the last places in the world to suffer from the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918-1920. This anthology of short stories by various writers about the ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic in Queensland is based on real people in real places.
An expansive collection of love letters to books, libraries, and reading, from a wonderfully eclectic array of thinkers and creators.
In these pages, some of today’s most wonderful culture-makers―writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers―reflect on the joys of reading, how books broaden and deepen human experience, and the ways in which the written word has formed their own character. On the page facing each letter, an illustration by a celebrated illustrator or graphic artist presents that artist’s visual response. (Amazon)
028.5 VEL
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources. (Goodreads)
Celebrated motivational speaker and YouTube sensation Lizzie Velasquez shows us how we can learn to accept all parts of ourselves and others to create a culture of kindness and a more compassionate world.
177.7 VEL