Everything and Nothing by Heather Mitchell
Memoir, Allen & Unwin, $34.99
Heather Mitchell’s storytelling prowess as an actor translates beautifully as a writer in her memoir Everything and Nothing, which ranges over her childhood and her hugely respected career in the theatre, film, and television.
There are many other facets though. A poignant side, in which she addresses her bouts with breast cancer; a candid side, in which she shares stories of her loves; and a quietly simmering side, in which she addresses the infuriatingly commonplace nature of sexism, sexual assault, and all the infringements women experience during their lives. But there is power here, too, as Mitchell converts her catalogue of experiences – which range from banal to horrifying – into creative energy, ultimately coming to a place of beauty, humour and wisdom. – Lucy Clark
Obsession by Nicole Madigan
Nonfiction/memoir, Pantera Press, $34.99
A third of the way into Nicole Madigan’s new book, I was shaken by a statistic: about 25% of Australian women will experience a type of stalking at some point in their lives, exacerbated by just how much of our lives are available online. Family violence-related stalking, perpetrated by men, is the most common – and although this behaviour is a high risk lethality indicator, Madigan presents shocking case studies to show that authorities still don’t take it seriously.
Madigan’s own stalker wasn’t a former or current partner but an obsessed ex of her new boyfriend, who destroyed her life for three years. Woven through the book, Madigan’s experience is horrifying and gripping, but it’s at the service of a much bigger story: about how far behind Australia’s justice system is when it comes to stalking, particularly outside the context of domestic violence. – Steph Harmon
Anam by Andre Dao
Memoir, Penguin, $32.99
Anam, by Melbourne-based writer, editor and artist André Dao, is an engaging and poetic family history memoir. Dao sets out to uncover more about his grandfather, an intellectual imprisoned by the communist government in Vietnam for 10 years. While he does discover much, the many twists and turns of this painstaking process are just as valuable as any revelations or answers.
A meditation on family memory and what it means to remember, Dao’s book never shies away from difficult truths. Equally complex and beautiful, Anam is a strange kind of family history page-turner. – Joseph Cummins
She is the Earth by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Poetry, Magabala Books, $27.99
Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann has described this verse novel as “a poetic manifesto of inner truth”, narrated by “a creation without birth” as they witness the world form around them. Beautifully metaphysical, it charts this journey of sound, light, rock and sea; we witness the creation of Country.
Eckermann was unemployed and living in a caravan in Adelaide when, in 2017, she won the $215,000 Windham-Campbell prize: a major US literary award given to authors who don’t even know they’re in the running. In her first release since then, She is the Earth feels both dreamlike and visceral, the talented poet making a nebulous plane of existence feel miraculously tangible in less than 100 pages. – Sian Cain
Search History by Amy Taylor
Novel, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Ana is in her late 20s and in the wake of a break-up when she meets the seemingly perfect Evan in a bar. Their relationship begins with an IRL purity that’s rare in the age of apps – until Ana does what any self-respecting person with a smartphone would do, and begins Googling him. Incessantly. And also his ex, who turns out to have died – quite recently, actually. And now Anna knows way too much about a person who Evan hasn’t even mentioned, and, in short: oh no.
Amy Taylor’s first novel Search History is funny, moreish, deeply online and cringingly relatable – while touching on darker themes that make it smarter than it needs to be too. – SH
Here Be Monsters: Is technology reducing our humanity? by Richard King
Nonfiction, Monash University Publishing, $32.99
The world is awash with talking heads extolling the promise – or foretelling the catastrophe – of the rise of artificial intelligence. Amid the hype and hysteria, Richard King’s book takes a longer, philosophical view: are we really just machines? What does new technology add, and what does it take away? Might our efforts to re-engineer ourselves corrode the essential equality born of the fact that we all (at present) come from nature?
King certainly spends time on AI, but casts his net wider over the technoscientific capitalist culture that gave birth to it. If it sounds like a heavy read, that’s because it is. This is a deep-thinking book, considering philosophical and critical traditions dating back to Socrates and Plato via Marshall McLuhan. But while grappling with the essence of what makes us human, King’s book mostly avoids being too dense and does a fine job of moving the conversation on – and up. – Celina Ribeiro
Fat Girl Dancing by Kris Kneen
Memoir, Text Publishing, $34.99
In their latest memoir, Kris Kneen turns their trademark poetic gaze to the body. The gift and provocation of all of their work, but of this in particular, is Kneen’s reminder that we could be so much more expansive in our lives, our art, our bodies.
Fat Girl Dancing is a triumphant rebellion against the constraints of gender and flesh, as Kneen traces a new outline for themselves, finding liberation in photography, erotica and dance. This should be, frankly, compulsory reading for everyone – with no exceptions. – Bec Kavanagh
The Albatross by Nina Wan
Fiction, Macmillan Australia, $34.99
The protagonist of Nina Wan’s debut novel holds a quiet power that’s difficult to resist. Primose Li is seeking solace from her domestic life – a sick husband, a career cut short, and the-one-that-got-away living with his new wife across the road – when she discovers the unlikely pleasure of a run-down golf course. There she meets the delightful, strong-willed Harriet, an 80-year old golf fiend who takes no prisoners and eats apples with a spoon.
This dreamy book is gently funny and tenderly drawn, with scenes and characters that will linger: a dreaded weekend by the sea spent with the awful friends of her neighbours warrants a special mention. As Primrose slowly learns to golf, we discovers exactly what she’s using it to escape from – the daily indignities of her gender, class and race, and more personal traumas that are buried below. – SH
Home Before Night by JP Pomare
Fiction, Hachette, $32.99
Alone with Jane Harper and Liane Moriarty, JP Pomare is quickly becoming one of Australia’s biggest literary exports, specialising as he does in a certain kind of breezy, topical thriller that will top bestseller charts every year or so.
His latest novel may be too topical for some: set during a Covid-19 lockdown in Melbourne, it follows a mother’s hunt for her son after he fails to return before curfew begins. She can’t go to the police due to reasons I won’t spoil here – but lockdown does make a neat setting for a frantic domestic thriller. With a starry adaptation of his previous novel In The Clearing about to start on Disney+, it is a good time to be a Pomare fan. – SC
Reckless by Marele Day
Memoir, Ultimo Press, $39.99
As a young woman, in an uncharacteristic moment of recklessness, Marele Day boarded a catamaran headed for Sri Lanka from Darwin. She would discover the skipper Jean Kay was a wanted man, on the run from an infamous bank heist – and that by then he had been a hijacker, a mercenary, a soldier, and one of the last great radical activists. It would be the beginning of an unlikely but lifelong friendship between the Australian novelist and the French outlaw.
Reckless is part memoir, part investigation of the bank heist, and part examination of Kay’s big life. The writing is exquisite as Day takes us through Europe and Brazil, following the trail. Structured so that the past meets the present, it is utterly compelling. – Susan Chenery
