A Rightful Place edited by Shireen Morris

After more than two centuries, Australians are soon to decide if and how Indigenous Australians will be recognised in the constitution. In this essential book, several leading Indigenous writers and thinkers provide a road map to recognition. These eloquent essays from contributors such as Noel Pearson, Stan Grant, Rachel Perkins, Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Pat Dodson show what constitutional recognition means, and what it could make possible. With clarity and power, they traverse law, history and culture to map the path to change.

Crimson Lake by Candice Fox

Six minutes – that’s all it took to ruin Ted Conkaffey’s life. When the detective makes a brief stop-off at a highway bus stop to fix a noise in his car, he somehow ends up becoming the main suspect in a brutal assault of a teenage girl. Released due to lack of evidence, but not aquitted, Ted runs away to the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. Here, he forms a tentative business relationship with the equally prickly Amanda Pharrell, an investigator on the hunt for a missing husband. Australian novelist Candice Fox has crafted an ingenious and edgy suspense novel that will keep you guessing up to the very last page.

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming

In 2015 Doaa, an ordinary girl from a village in Syria was one of 500 people crammed on to a fishing boat bound for Europe. The boat was deliberately capsized, and Doaa was one of only 11 survivors. Melissa Fleming, the chief spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, tells Doaa’s story. It is also the story of the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, and the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons who risk everything to escape war, violence and death

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body. From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying.

Breaking the Mould by Angela Pippos

Sport is integral to Australian life and identity – but it doesn’t take long to find examples of stark gender inequality and glaring double standards. However, an extraordinary transformation is taking place. Veteran sports journalist Angela Pippos charts a powerful awakening across Australian life; from suburban footy fields to stadium cage fights, female athletes are changing the status quo through fierce determination and undeniable performances. Through candid and hilarious tales from a life in sport, Pippos challenges us to keep working towards a level playing field.

They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery

In over a year of on-the-ground reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery travelled across the US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today, interviewing the families of victims of police brutality, as well as local activists. The result is a deeply reported book on the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, offering unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America, and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it.

The Trapeze Act by Libby Angel

Set in suburban Adelaide of the 60s, The Trapeze Act is a vivid and vibrant debut novel that explores family and the magic of storytelling. Loretta’s mother was a trapeze artist in Europe, the star of the famed Rodzirkus circus, before she walked out on her drunken husband and his debts while on tour in Australia. Growing up in her mother’s flamboyant and often outrageous shadow, Loretta finds her life stifling, and at times, brutal.

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney

J.P. Delaney’s Hitchcockian thriller is perfect for fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Jane has stumbled on what seems like the rental opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to live in a beautiful ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition that she abides by a long list of exacting rules. She can’t resist and it’s only after moving in that she discovers a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there. As twist after twist catches the reader off guard, Emma’s past and Jane’s present become inexorably entwined in this tense, page-turning portrayal of psychological obsession.

Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay

Roxane Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America, of privilege and of poverty, of marriages, past crimes and emotional blackmail. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind.

Still Lucky by Rebecca Huntley

Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia’s most experienced and knowledgeable social researchers. In this book she tackles some of the biggest social questions facing Australia now: Why do we fear asylum seekers? Why are women still underpaid and overworked? Why do we over-parent? Why do we worry even though we are lucky? Still Lucky is a broad-ranging and compelling look at who we are now and where we are heading in the future.

Ida by Alison Evans

Alison Evans’s crossover YA debut is a gender-fluid, sci-fi story of parallel universes. How do people decide on a path, and find the drive to pursue what they want? Ida struggles more than other twentysomethings to work this out – she can shift between parallel universes, allowing her to follow alternative paths. When she spots a shadowy, see-through doppelganger of herself on the train, and she starts to wonder if she’s actually in control of her ability…

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s second work of fiction is a beautifully written and sharply observed book about the aspirations of those who leave one country for another: a young Vietnamese refugee suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco; a woman’s husband who suffers from dementia starts to confuse her for a former lover; a girl compares her life in Ho Chi Minh City with that of her older half-sister’s life in America. These stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of immigration.