Best Books of 2011 as chosen by Australian authors
Visitation
$19.99 – Paperback book / Portobello
A house on the forested bank of a Brandenburg lake outside Berlin (once belonging to Erpenbeck’s grandparents) is the focus of this compact, beautiful novel. Encompassing over one hundred years of German history, from th... Buy or find out more →
February
$22.95 – Paperback book / Grove Press
From the publishers of Mary Lawson and Alice Munro, a moving and masterful novel by 'an astonishing writer' (Richard Ford)
In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's night s... Buy or find out more →
Orientation And Other Stories
$29.95 – Hardcover book / Farrar Straus & Giro
Breakfast’s boiled egg, the overhead hum of fluorescent lights, the midmorning coffee break—daily routines keep the world running. But when people are pushed—by a coworker’s taunt, a face-to-face encounter with a woman i... Buy or find out more →
Open City
$29.99 – Paperback book / Faber & Faber
Nigerian immigrant Julius, a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City, has recently broken up with his girlfriend and spends most of his time dreamily walking around Manhattan. The majority of Open Cit... Buy or find out more →
After Romulus
$32.95 – Trade paperback / Text Publishing
‘People have often asked me how I survived my childhood reasonably sane. They think it was because my father and Hora loved me deeply and that I never doubted it. But as much as, perhaps more than that, it was the fact t... Buy or find out more →
Embassytown
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Tor
Welcome to Arieka, the distant, densely imagined planet that serves as principal setting for China Mieville’s extraordinary new novel, Embassytown.
Immerser Avice Benner Cho has returned to her childhood home, from her... Buy or find out more →
The Best American Non Required Reading 2011
$20.95 – Paperback book / Mariner Books
A selection of the best writing, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and blogs, published during 2010
An eclectic volume introduced by Guillermo del Toro and compiled by Dave Eggers and students of his San Fra... Buy or find out more →
Worse Things Happen At Sea
$35.00 – Hardcover book / Hachette
WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA is about families, suburbs and homes, friends, love and day to day life written by bestselling author William McInnes and award winning filmmaker, photographer and animator Sarah Watt.
In Willi... Buy or find out more →
Blue Monday
$29.95 – Trade paperback / Michael Joseph
the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets . . .
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face... Buy or find out more →
Triptych
$29.95 – Paperback book / Text Publishing
A solitary young woman called Lilly pursues online adventure among the anonymous torsos of Chatroulette, and finds a soul mate.
Leda's first love brings tenderness, heartbreak and a powerful sexual awakening at the behes... Buy or find out more →
Lord Of Misrule
$21.95 – Paperback book / Vintage
National Book Award Winner
PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post and Time
Magazine
"Assured, exotic and uncategorizable.... An incontrovertible winner, a bona fide bolt from t... Buy or find out more →
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
$19.95 – Paperback book / Vintage
264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited... Buy or find out more →
Foal's Bread
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Allen & Unwin
Read our Q&A with Gillian Mears about Foal's Bread.
The sound of horses' hooves turns hollow on the farms west of Wirri. If a man can still ride, if he hasn't totally lost the use of his legs, if he hasn't died to t... Buy or find out more →
The Sound Of A Wild Snail Eating
$22.95 – Paperback book / Text Publishing
In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a Neohelix albolabris—a common woodland snail.... Buy or find out more →
The Corpse Walker And Other True Stories Of Life In China
$34.95 – Trade paperback / Text Publishing
Translated by Wen Huang
The Corpse Walker is a collection of twenty-seven extraordinary interviews that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women.
Liao Yiwu recons... Buy or find out more →
Before The Poison
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Hodder Headline
Number One bestselling author Peter Robinson turns his hand to an atmospheric and suspenseful standalone novel.
Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined... Buy or find out more →
The Origins Of Political Order
$51.95 – Hardcover book / Farrar Strauss Girou
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. ... Buy or find out more →
You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead
$29.99 – Paperback book / Allen & Unwin
From childhood dreams of prostitution to her unabashed passion for heavy drinking, from growing up wide-eyed on the set of Australian soaps to her infatuation with Bob Ellis, these are the outrageously entertaining and d... Buy or find out more →
The Monsoon Bride
$29.95 – Trade paperback / Text Publishing
Burma, 1930.
At their final marriage lesson, when the priest had talked on and on, Desmond bent his head to hers and whispered, ‘Our world is newer, faster and better—you will see.’ She took his hand in hers then and squ... Buy or find out more →
The Psychopath Test
$0.00 – Paperback book / Macmillan
This is a story about madness. It all starts when journalist Jon Ronson is contacted by a leading neurologist. She and several colleagues have recently received a cryptically puzzling book in the mail, and Jon is challen... Buy or find out more →
Cargo
$19.99 – Paperback book / Picador
Read our Q&A with Jessica Au about her debut novel Cargo.
Frankie is fifteen and beginning to realise that when it comes to sex, or even love, she doesn’t seem to play it like other girls. As summer begins, she find... Buy or find out more →