A story told in wool embroidery and collage, this is the rather endearing tale of Fat Little Bug’s party. The bugs have always lived in the same old blanket at the bottom of the garden, each in their own hole, never seeing each other till the party brings them together. They find how different each looks from the other quite unexpected and are initially judgemental of each other.

But they soon begin to discover they are different, well ... just because they are. Which doesn’t matter. So let’s party. Quirky, homespun, crafty; this is a delightful picture story with a contemporary look and an ageless message.

Yes, this is all about animals and their poo, and as one who has a slight aversion to the plethora of bum and fart books around, I sighed inwardly when I first saw it. Aaah, but this is a poo book with a purpose. Mouse, who is full of curiosity, wants to know what all his animal friends have in their nappies. Lift the flap and see – horse’s three round droppings, doggie’s poo with a pointy end, rabbit’s seven pellets etc. But when they all want to see what is in mouse’s nappy, they are in for a big surprise. It’s empty. Because mouse uses the potty for his little pellets. Now everyone wants to sit on the potty. It’s fun, silly and eminently useful!

Wildflower is the story of Joan Root, one half of a great wildlife film-making partnership, with her husband Allan. They produced some of our best-loved documentary films and changed the way we view nature – especially the wildlife inhabitants of Africa.

But this is Joan’s story. She was born in Nairobi to a British father and South African mother and lived much of her life in Lake Naivasha, on a beautiful 80-acre property. She was brought up to be self-reliant and was an only child. Her idyllic life and film-making partnership changed after 20 years, when Allan met Jennie Hammond, whom he would later marry. Joan had to find her own voice – which she did thorough conservation work, especially the safe guarding of Lake Naivasha’s fish habitats.

Mark Seal captures the essence of a shy and introverted girl, for a time obscured by her flamboyant husband, who remains a strong and resolute woman, until her untimely death. This book is enriched by a cast of real life wildlife personalities, such as David Attenborough, Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, and Joy and George Adamson. This engaging read truly illuminates your sense of wonderment at wildlife – and at this determined woman.

There are those of us for whom the name Kurt Vonnegut will always evoke a sense of magic. Vonnegut was one of those timeless writers, a man who spoke both for the times in which he lived, and beyond, into the future.

Since Vonnegut's passing, in April 2007, a few new books have appeared. This handsome volume, a collection of previously unpublished short stories and speeches, is a must for all fans of Vonnegut and great writing. Exploring the twin themes of war and peace, these pieces sparkle with Vonnegut's typical wit, wisdom, and humanity, and they also reveal the growth of Vonnegut, as both a writer and as a human being.

Opening with a loving introduction from Vonnegut's son Mark, the book also contains a letter sent by Vonnegut to his parents when the author was a prisoner of war. Illustrated throughout with Vonnegut's own art, this book is as beautiful as it is valuable.

Metz and her writer husband, renowned for his extravagant dinner parties and charismatic charm, live with their young daughter in picket-fence splendour an hour outside New York City. She runs a successful design business and enjoys a coterie of friends, and Henry has just begun work on a food book about umami, the Japanese idea of perfection. When he suddenly drops dead from an embolism, Metz’s life is thrown into chaos. She is stricken with grief, then humiliation, bewilderment and rage, when she discovers Henry had been engaged in multiple affairs, one for three years with a presumed friend, who at the time of discovery is babysitting her daughter.

So begins her dig beneath the deceptive surface of her life. In a deeply honest, intelligent and unputdownable memoir, Metz trawls through Henry’s emails, notes, books, psychoanalysis and her own life, and confronts the five women he was involved with. Seeing Metz deal with such loss and betrayal is painful yet somehow captivating, as is the way she dismantles her lost husband without vengeance, while seeking to understand him. A top read.

We often hear about Afghan women. We don’t often hear from them. Here, Malalai Joya, who at 25 years old was the youngest woman ever elected to the Afghan parliament, passionately reveals the complexity of contemporary Afghan politics through her own extraordinary experience.

In her first address to the parliament, she denounced many of her fellow parliamentarians for crimes against humanity committed throughout the jihadi and Taliban eras. Many perpetrators of atrocities (from rape to torture to mutilation and massacres) now sit in parliament. Joya believes that without justice for these war crimes, the country will always be unsafe and corrupt. She was suspended from parliament, has received many death threats and travels with bodyguards, but she continues to speak of her hope that the trauma Afghans live with will be acknowledged, and that the men who authorised and committed these crimes will meet justice.

Her bravery is breathtaking and inspirational. She is proud of her country and her history, but she is unafraid to highlight its black spots of despair and violence. Joya has raised her voice: the least we can do is listen.

Pip Newling volunteers for Mahboba's Promise, an Australian-Afghan organisation that assists destitute widows and orphans in Afghanistan. Find out more at www.mahbobaspromise.org.

Sean Dooley’s father Baz is your typical Aussie larrikin who loves his pub, his mates, his meat and, when he finally returns home many hours later to a cold meal, his family. Part autobiography, part memoir, this book is an amusing look back at Australian suburban life in the seventies and eighties with an artistic mother married to a loud-mouthed bookmaker from the wrong side of the tracks. Sean works with his father as a bookie to pay his way through university but chooses bird-watching and literature over interminable drinking and yarn sessions at the bar.

Among the smiles this memoir evokes is the unconditional love shown by Baz towards Di when she is dying from her second bout of cancer. Emaciated, bedridden, in pain and having no appetite, Baz goes to extraordinary lengths to tempt her palate with an array of his deliciously home-cooked meals. It is during these heart-wrenching times that Baz and Sean reconnect and discover the glories in the common ground they thought they’d lost.

Sean Dooley was a Readings Glenfern Fellow.