Bestselling books in new, compact formats
These bestselling books are now available in smaller, more portable formats!
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
A discarded painting in a roadside clean-up, forgotten bones in a research archive, and Lexington, the greatest racehorse in US history. These facts form the basis of Geraldine Brooks’ – a writer with a prodigious talent for bringing the past to life – latest masterpiece Horse.
From an enslaved groom in 1850, to a gallery owner in 1950s New York City and an Australian Smithsonian scientist in 2019, the multi-stranded narrative in this enthralling novel forms a gripping reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America: a story of spirit, obsession and injustice across American history.
Lessons by Ian McEwan
While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later Roland’s wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means – literature, travel, friendship, drugs, politics, sex and love.
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov & Angela Roder (trans.)
Winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize
In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flaneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.
As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present – a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Every day I clean the Winchesters' beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew's handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it's hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina's life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina's pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it's like. But she soon finds out... and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it's far too late.
Dinner with the Schnabels by Toni Jordan
Things haven't gone well for Simon Larsen lately. He adores his wife, Tansy, and his children, but since his business failed and he lost the family home, he can't seem to get off the couch.
His larger-than-life in-laws, the Schnabels won't get off his case. To keep everyone happy, Simon needs to do one little job: he has a week to landscape a friend's backyard for an important Schnabel family event.
But as the week progresses, Simon is derailed by the arrival of an unexpected house guest. Then he discovers Tansy is harbouring a secret. As his world spins out of control, who can Simon really count on when the chips are down?
Sweet Jimmy by Bryan Brown
Phil and Sweet Jimmy are cousins. Phil grows spider orchids which he learnt about in the nick. Jimmy likes orchids, too, but there are other things he likes even more.
Trish Bennett didn't like her life. Hadn't liked it for a long time. Been on the streets. Bit of this for a bit of that. The 'that' wasn't always nice. Then Ahmed found her.
Taut and crackling with character, these are just a couple of the gritty, raw and sometimes very funny stories from Australian great Bryan Brown's debut. Crime doesn't discriminate, it can happen to anyone. It could happen to you, in any ordinary suburb, at any time. Aussie Noir at its best!
Wolfsong by TJ Klune
Ox Matheson was twelve when his father taught him a lesson: Ox wasn't worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.
Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harbouring a secret that would change him forever. For the family are shapeshifters, who can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty and enduring friendships Ox finds an ally in Joe who is charming and handsome, but haunted by scars he cannot heal.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he's a man - and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
The first book in the Green Creek series which continues with Ravensong.