Discover the new nonfiction books our booksellers are recommending this month!
Snake Talk: How the World’s Ancient Serpent Stories Can Guide Us
Tyson Yunkaporta & Megan Kelleher
Over the course of his first two books, Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story, Tyson Yunkaporta has carved out a highly distinct intellectual niche.
A member of the Apalech clan from Far North Queensland and founder of the Indigenous Knowledges Systems Lab at Deakin, Yunkaporta applies Indigenous wisdom to contemporary problems with brilliant insight. In this new book, Snake Talk, Yunkaporta has co-authored the text with his wife, Megan Kelleher, a Barada and Gabalbara woman with a background researching blockchain technology and Indigenous knowledge.
The book explores the snakes, serpents and dragons that feature prominently in so many of the world’s myths, from Nepal, Central America, Ireland, India and China. Kelleher and Yunkaporta approach these stories by meeting, breaking bread and engaging in solemn ritual with representatives of each culture, bringing them into dialogue with Indigenous Lore. The tone is inclusive and invitational, too – oral culture transmuted into written form.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the book’s humour. Snake Talk opens with a cheeky anecdote about the confusion of European naturalists encountering the echidna, a mammal with two vaginas. This follows on from Right Story , Wrong Story, which opens with a fact about the male echidna’s four-headed penis. I am personally eager to know whether all their future books will include echidna genitalia as a recurring literary motif.
Rich and layered, Snake Talk is partly a response to the crises of rising authoritarianism and environmental collapse we currently face. It calls for rebalancing our relationships with the Earth and each other through shared narrative, ‘gathering a world of stories around one fire’. At a time when our world feels fragile, we sorely need the kind of fresh thinking found in this expansive and visionary book.
Reviewed by James Marples.
Mother Mary Comes To Me
Arundhati Roy
The instant you see Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes To Me, you will want to pick it up for the striking black-and-white photographs on the jacket alone. On the front: a youthful, hopeful Roy – contemplative, with a bidi in hand. On the back: an older, dare I say, wiser, Roy with a wry smile, perhaps observing her younger self – peaceful, knowledgeable and content.
This is a memoir of epic proportions and fans of Roy’s fiction will not be disappointed. It’s a memoir of two parts: a searingly beautiful and honest account of Roy’s complex relationship with her mother, Mary, and Roy’s own life story, particularly her journey in writing her epic Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things. Roy is a truly gifted storyteller and I believe if there were a prize awarded for the “Booker of all Bookers” then The God of Small Things would surely be the winner.
Mary Roy (‘Mrs Roy’ to her children) was a force of nature. A single mother, it seems she did not have time for the trivialities of raising children. She was, however, a fiercely intelligent and progressive woman and educator. Mrs Roy established a school in Kerala in 1967 that still flourishes today, and she continues to be revered as a feminist and visionary. However, her children, particularly Arundhati, bore the brunt of a cruelty that clearly contradicts the accolades. Roy’s memories of her mother are captured with striking clarity and are often disturbing; as a reader, you wonder how she put up with it all.
There is a period of seven years where Roy doesn’t have contact with Mrs Roy, and it is during this time that we learn of Roy’s other life – a life of her own creation involving struggles with making it on her own, poverty, studies, loves, political activism, successful careers in architecture and filmmaking – and with the call of writing a constant throughout. Roy looks back at how The God of Small Things, her debut novel, catapulted her into the upper echelons of the literary world. These recollections are inspiring and reveal the making of an author before the digital age – what a gift.
When mother and daughter do make contact again, Roy is older and credits her mother with allowing her freedom: to think, to write, to be. Mother Mary Comes to Me is a memoir to devour, equal parts rage and heartache: two women, two very different paths and ultimately two legacies shaped by each other.
Reviewed by Danielle Mirabella.
Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath
S. Shakthidharan
S. Shakthidharan is an award-winning playwright whose credits include the internationally acclaimed multilingual work Counting and Cracking and The Wrong Gods, which is included in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2025 season. With Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath, Shakthidharan has made a seamless translation into the memoir genre.
Shakthidharan, who is of Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry, describes himself in both the book and in his work elsewhere as a storyteller. In the prologue of Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath he is asked for a chronological retelling of his life and he answers that lives are not remembered like that, but rather in ‘bits and pieces’. What follows is an engaging narrative where Shakthidharan one by one addresses family members (with one special addition) to share his memories with them (and us). This provides coherence as the stories intersect through time, people and places, as well as thematically. The subjects are diverse: from the horror of the Sri Lankan Civil War to moving houses (literally), falling in love to a gifted dancer’s career being cut short, and arguing over household finances to reuniting with an estranged father. Shakthidharan writes with both honesty and empathy, especially in relation to his mother. She is one of several key female figures who provide insight into why he is so adept at writing female characters in his plays.
I haven’t read a memoir in a while, and this was such a satisfying return to the genre from both an emotional and stylistic standpoint. Already highly praised by writers such as Alice Pung, Shankari Chandran and Omar Musa, Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath has been commissioned to inspire a program of events at the Powerhouse Parramatta in 2026. So, once again, like his plays, Shakthidharan’s words (and stories) will have life beyond the page.
Reviewed by Amanda Rayner.
Also recommended are:
Exposure
Amber Creswell Bell
In her latest collection, Amber Creswell Bell explores the work of 40 contemporary photographers from Australia and New Zealand, such as Leila Jeffreys, Bill Henson and Kara Rosenlund. Each artist shares insights into their practice, ranging from the whimsical to the wild, addressing subjects as diverse as the environment, motherhood and identity.
Exposure captures the essence of modern photography, showcasing bold perspectives, striking landscapes and intimate portraits that reflect the region’s cultural richness and natural beauty.
Beyond Suburbia
Warren Kirk
In the margins between the city and the bush, Warren Kirk uncovers the quiet poetry of Victoria’s hinterlands. These richly textured photographs capture the overlooked buildings, people, and landscapes of rural and semi-rural Australia. Rendered with enormous sensitivity, this collection is more than a photographic journey – it’s an elegiac meditation on place, people, and memory.
Kirk continues his remarkable project of preserving vanishing Australian scenes, inviting viewers to witness the extraordinary within the seemingly mundane.
The Eye of the Dragonfly
Tracy Lee Holmes
For over four decades, journalist Tracey Lee Holmes has taken us beyond the scores and stats to the real stories of sport. In both her life and work, Holmes has consistently broken barriers.
As the first female presenter of ABC’s Grandstand, she has pioneered coverage of and by women in sport. From the Olympics to FIFA World Cups, Holmes has brought us closer to athletes from all walks of life and spotlighted stories of money, power and discrimination. Her memoir offers insight into a rich personal history and a remarkable life in sport.
A Short History of the Gaza Strip
Anne Irfan
The Gaza Strip is one of the most widely-reported on regions in the world – yet misinformation about its history and its people abounds. In this vital book, historian Anne Irfan explains Gaza’s outsized political significance through six pivotal moments in its modern history.
Drawing on a decade of research, and written with clarity and compassion, Irfan weaves in the voices of everyday Palestinians. A Short History of the Gaza Strip is an indispensable read for anyone seeking to understand Palestine today.
Nature's Last Dance
Natalie Kyriacou
Set against the backdrop of a rapidly unfolding mass extinction event, Nature’s Last Dance is a story of survival and extinction, of life and death, of curiosity and perversion, of joy and sorrow.
It takes readers across hunting grounds, through jungles and oceans, inside communities, through courtrooms, and into the heart of battles to survive against all odds. Natalie Kyriacou confronts the extinction crisis with courage and curiosity, charting a new course for nature and showing us why it is so worth fighting for.
Night People
Mark Ronson
Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack. Behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson.
Now, his memoir Night People captures the music, characters, escapades and energy of his formative DJ days in ’90s New York. It evokes a time and place where fashionistas and rappers danced alongside club kids and nine-to-fivers, inviting us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down.
Available from 23 September.
Quarterly Essay 99: Woodside vs the Planet – How a Company Captured a Country
Marian Wilkinson
How does one company capture a country? This is a story of power and influence, pollution and protest. The world may have committed at Paris to hold back dangerous climate change and curb fossil-fuel use in the 2030s, but Australia’s fossil-fuel giant Woodside is doubling down. It has plans for increased production into the 2070s. Support from the major parties is locked in.
In this engrossing essay, Marian Wilkinson reveals the ways of corporate power and investigates the new face of resistance and disruption. The stakes could not be higher.
