Our latest blog posts

The March crime review

These are the crime books which have been read and reviewed by our excellent booksellers this month – all in one place!

What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan

Reviewed by Lian Hingee, digital marketing manager

Australia is blessed with some of the very best crime writers in the world right now, and Dervla McTiernan is without a doubt one of the finest. Her debut, The Rúin, was a global bestseller that won a host of awards when…

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Australian fiction to pick up this month

Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh

Mary Anne is painfully aware that she's not a good wife and not a good mother, and is slowly realising that she no longer wants to play either of those roles. One morning, she walks out of the family home in Wollongong, leaving her husband and teenage daughters behind. Wounded by her mother's abandonment, adolescent Vivian searches for meaning everywhere: true crime, boys' bedrooms, Dolly magazine, a six-pack of beer. But when Vivian…

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A spotlight on translated fiction this month

This month we're reading fiction translated from Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Dutch!

Until August by Gabriel García Márquez (translated from Spanish by Anne McLean)

Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for…

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The 2024 International Booker Longlist

The International Booker Prize has revealed the ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 novels in contention for the 2024 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.

The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators…

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The Carol Shields Prize longlist 2024

The 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction longlist has been anounced!

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is the first major English-language literary prize to celebrate creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States, awarding $150,000 USD to its winner, and $12,500 USD to each of its four finalists.

Explore the 15 longlisted titles below.

Cocktail by Lisa Alward

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Dances by Nicole Cuffy

Daughter by Claudia Dey

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Best food and gardening books of the month, with Chris Gordon

by Chris Gordon

The Mediterranean Cook by Meni Valle

Meni Valle is a teacher and a culinary tour guide in the Mediterranean. This is excellent news because it means her recipes are easy to follow, considered for a range of skill sets, and include a historical background to each dish. This is her sixth cookbook, and it captures the Mediterranean approach of dishes that spread from the early afternoon through to the evening. Imagine filo pastries, stuffed vegetables, grilled meats, and delicious fruit-based…

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What we're reading: Okazaki, Scanlan & Blain

Each week our wonderful staff share the books and music that they've been enjoying.

Mark Rubbo is reading We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain

I have been reading the posthumous collection of short stories by Georgia Blain, We All Lived in Bondi Then. It's an exquisite collection, moving, at times funny and so readable. I was reminded of Alice Munro and Tessa Hadley.

I've also just read Nicholas Jose's novel The Idealist. Think le Carré…

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The Women's Prize for Fiction longlist 2024

The longlist for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced! The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze figurine known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.

Below are the sixteen longlisted books.

Hangman by Maya Binyam

In Defence of the Act by Effie Black

And Then She Fell

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