October is always an exciting time in the literary world. Here are some of the buzziest, biggest books to have arrived on our shelves this month.

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

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. The Dunbar boys bring each other up in a house run by their own rules. A family of ramshackle tragedy, 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’s looking for a miracle and nothing less.

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami (translated by Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen)

When a thirty-something portrait painter discovers a previously unseen painting in the remote mountain home of a famous artist, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during WWII in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors.

Boys Will be Boys by Clementine Ford

In her new book, Clementine Ford dismantles the age-old idea that entitlement, aggression and toxicity are natural realms for boys, and reveals how the patriarchy we live in is as harmful to boys and men as it is to women and girls. Our reviewer describes it as ‘an impassioned call for societal change from a writer who has become a stand-out voice of her generation (and has the trolls to prove it) and an act of devotion from a mother to her son’. Boys Will be Boys is a groundbreaking work.

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

Private investigator Cormoran Strike and, now partner at the detective agency, Robin Ellacott return for another gripping crime novel from Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling). In Lethal White, a mysterious and strangely compelling story of a long-ago murder sends the two on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside. Both Cormoran and Robin also have to contend with their fraught personal relationship, one that is now more important than ever.

The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper

After Black Saturday, arson squad detectives arrived at a plantation on the edge of a 26,000-hectare burn site in the Latrobe Valley. The police close in on someone they believe to be a cunning offender; and defence lawyers seek to understand the motives of a man who, they claimed, was a naïf that had accidentally dropped a cigarette. This is the story not only of this fire – how it happened, the people who died, the aftermath for the community – but of fire in this country. As she did in The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper reveals something buried but essential in our national psyche.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

The retreat at health and wellness resort Tranquillum House promises total transformation. Nine stressed city dwellers have just arrived, and are keen to drop their literal and mental baggage, while they absorb the meditative ambience and enjoy their hot stone massages. Watching over them is the resort’s director, a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies. These nine strangers have no idea what is about to hit them.

You Daughters Of Freedom by Clare Wright

For the ten years from 1902, when Australia’s suffrage campaigners won the vote for white women, the world looked to this trailblazing democracy for inspiration. Clare Wright, the author of the Stella Prize-winning The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, tells the story of that victory – and of Australia’s role in the subsequent international struggle – through the eyes of five remarkable players: Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, Dora Montefiore, Muriel Matters, and Dora Meeson Coates. Once again, Wright brings a fresh perspective to Australian history.

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever. 10 years later and now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past.

The Cook’s Apprentice by Stephanie Alexander

Since its publication in 1996, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion has earned a reputation a must-have cookbook for every Australian home. Here, she turns her attention to the younger cook who’s just starting out. Arranged alphabetically, The Cook’s Apprentice includes 56 ingredient chapters – from Apples to Zucchini – and more than 300 achievable recipes ranging from classics every cook will want to try to exciting new dishes that reflect our diverse nation.

Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales

As a journalist, dual Walkley Award-winner Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives. But one particular string of bad news stories – and a terrifying brush with her own mortality – sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.