What does adventure mean to you? Is it travelling to far-away lands, investigating a murder, cheating death, going on a good old-fashioned road trip, or running away to join the circus? We recommend some of our favourite novels that exemplify the spirit of exploration and the dogged pursuit of dangerous truths, risky mysteries and new frontiers of knowledge. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett …

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Books for older primary readers can be enormously thoughtful, covering a range of topics and experiences that reflects the insatiable curiosity and open minds of kids at that age. Here are five recently published books that will get keen young readers thinking. Check Mates by Stewart Foster

Eleven-year-old Felix struggles at school. His ADHD makes it hard to concentrate and no one seems to…

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Here are the 12 most awarded books of 2019 - so far! Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. Eli Bell is just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way – not least of which is Tytus Br…

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FICTION For book clubs who love a good WWII read, try… A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

Mourning the loss of both her fiancé and brother in WWI and now regarded as a ‘surplus woman’, Violet heads for a new life in Winchester. And as the threat of WWII looms on the horizon, she begins to collect some secrets of her own…Warm, vivid and beautifully orchestrated, A Single Thread reveals one …

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A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with Bishop about how and why she chose to write about the long aftermath of Black Saturday. Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you. I feel very lucky…

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The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Men at Work: Australia’s Parenthood Trap (Quarterly Essay 75) by Annabel Crabb Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe Fixed It by Jane Gilmore Three Women by Lisa Taddeo Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta When You’re Not OK by Jill Stark Dogs in Space by Richard Lowenstein On a Wing and a Prayer by Di Websdale-Morrissey The Anarchy by W…

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How to Make a Movie in Twelve Days by Fiona Hardy Young Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe For Whom the Ball Rolls (The Adventures of Dog Man Book 7) by Dav Pilkey The 117-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton Kindness Grows by Britta Teckentrup It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood Kind by Alison Green & Axel Scheffler The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim All the Ways …

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The Wilderness Society has revealed the winners of this year’s Environment Award for Children’s Literature. This award is presented annually to fiction and nonfiction books that ‘foster a love of wild places and wildlife in young Australians’ and ‘encourage a sense of responsibility for our natural world’.

Here are the winners for all three categories…

Picture Fiction The All New Must Have…

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The £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize is the UK’s most prestigious award for nonfiction writing. This year’s longlist spans history, biography, current affairs and natural science, with several addressing grand themes including race, court room drama, ideology, and economics.

The titles on the 2019 longlist are:

I Will Never See the World Again by Ahmet Altan Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the L…

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Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving. Ellen Cregan is reading We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

I’ve been reading We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. This hilarious collection of essays makes for delightful reading – Irby is a comedian who runs the…

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