In San Ginese, life and death live side by side, as do prosperity and poverty, opportunity and desperation, friends and enemies. But filled as it is with bawdy gossip, tall tales, and plenty of manure, The Fireflies of Autumn, and Other Tales of San Ginese is not just a story of hardship and hope, but…
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Writer, editor and Feminartsy founder Zoya Patel is just a few days away from releasing her debut essay collection, No Country Woman. Ahead of the book’s launch, Jodie chatted to Zoya about what inspired her to put pen to paper and explore her experiences as a Fijian-Indian-Australian. Could you tell us a little about No…
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The Geography of Friendship, the second novel from author Sally Piper, tells of the journey of three young girls, Samantha, Lisa and Nicole, who set out on an adventurous five-day hike as teenagers. Three young girls who found and befriended each other at school, because no one else had, or would. Their frightening adventure starts…
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This week the shortlist for the 2018 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize was unveiled to the public, with Claire Aman (NSW), Sharmini Aphrodite (Singapore) & Madelaine Lucas (NSW/USA) each getting the nod. This year the prize attracted almost 1,200 entries from writers from across the globe. The winning author will receive $7,000, whilst the shortlisted…
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Marlon Bundo, that lonely bunny who’s been making headlines this week, will be making his Australian debut next month, with the local release of this bestselling new children’s book. The book, A Day in the life of Marlon Bundo, was launched by comedian John Oliver earlier this week on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, and is in…
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The Lebs is the confronting and compelling new novel from award-winning novelist, editor, and community arts worker Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Following the release of the novel last week we caught up with Michael to discover more about the novel, the inspirations behind it, and his take on the state of diversity in Australian literature. Mohammed’s essays…
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Happy New Year everyone. Now we’ve packed away the Christmas decorations and finished the last of the festive treats, we in the book review team at the AU thought it’d be a good time to look back at some of our favourite books of the last year. A veritable smorgasbord of great books were released…
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October has been good to book lovers, with a bumper collection of new releases. So here, as promised, are five more books we think you need to be reading. Three of the five books are highly anticipated sequels, prequels and follow-ups, though some are more long-awaited than others. Included on this list is a nice…
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On Saturday 28th October the Bankstown Arts Centre is to play host to Boundless, a new literary festival bringing together Indigenous and culturally diverse Australian authors, both emerging and established, with readers to help celebrate the changing face of Australian literature. Presented by the NSW Writers’ Centre and Bankstown Arts Centre, Boundless, is a free…
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Inua Ellams, is a Nigerian-born, award-winning poet, playwright, performer and the founder of The Midnight Run. He has published four books of poetry, including his most recent publication #Afterhours. His plays have toured internationally, and have been performed at England’s The National Theatre, the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival, and at the Perth International Arts Festival earlier this…
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In 2015 writer and academic, Mandy Len Catron went viral when an article she wrote was published in The New York Times. It was called, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” where she described her recent date with a new acquaintance. They had answered 36 questions together from a research study designed to…
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Welcome to this month’s round up of the books we think you need to be reading. This month’s collection is once again a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, with Billy Bragg’s new treatise on the history and influence of skiffle music taking out the top spot. Beyond that we’ve got the latest book from Mexico’s…
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On the 18th June the shortlist for the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award – an award now in it’s 60th year – was unveiled to the public. And what an exciting shortlist it was, with all five of this nominated authors shortlisted for the very first time! It was also great to see many of…
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Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re going to know if you’re going to like a novel just from looking at the cover and the synopsis. Sometimes it’s handy to read a little bit of the novel, get a feel for it… realise you love it, want to read more, and go out and by…
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On the 18th June the shortlist for the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award – an award now in it’s 60th year – was unveiled to the public. And what an exciting shortlist it was, with all five of this nominated authors shortlisted for the very first time! It was also great to see many of…
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We’re somehow half way through the year already! Thanks to international travel and the resulting jetlag this month’s list of the five books we think you need to be reading is a little later than planned. But here it is all the same. There’s still some time left to add them to your lists. This…
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Welcome to this month’s round up of the books we think you need to be reading. It’s a bit of an eclectic mix this month, with a mixture of fiction, poetry and some non-fiction. We’ve got monsters, deplorables, teenagers and NDNs’. We move from the Hindu Kush, to Brooklyn, to Prague and to Australia. So…
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An acclaimed group of Australian authors will travel to China next week for the tenth annual Australian Writers Week. The event, supported by the Copyright Agency’s ‘Cultural Fund’ since 2014, is a significant opportunity for cultural exchange, with Australian authors getting the chance to travel across China sharing their stories, whilst also raising awareness of the…
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Easter has come and gone for another year. Hopefully you’ve all eaten your fill of chocolate and hot cross buns. Now it’s time to gorge yourself on some new books, and April is proving to be a fantastic month for great new reads. There’s plenty to choose from this month, but here are the five…
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The program for the 20th Sydney Writers’ Festival was announced at the end of last week – and for those literary types not in Sydney there is going to be some serious festival envy. Taking place across six days from May 22nd to May 28th, the festival boasts over 450 writers taking part in 400…
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With the post-Christmas lull out of the way, March has proven to be a great month for new releases. In fact it was pretty hard to whittle the list down to just five this month, with plenty of titles catching my eye. But here are our five picks for the books you absolutely must read…
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Earlier this year it was announced that remote publishing house Magabala Books had teamed up with the Copyright Agency and the Australian Literacy Educators Association to devise a series of specially created teaching resources for 15 Indigenous stories, which will be made available to teachers via the Reading Australia website. The resources were devised and…
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In an announcement timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, the longlist for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction has been unveiled. Now in its 22nd year, and fourth year in partnership with Baileys, the prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women, in English, from around the world. Set up in…
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International Women’s Day is the backdrop for yet another literary award announcement, with the shortlist for the 2017 Stella Prize being unveiled to the public. The Stella Prize, named for Stella Maria Sarah ‘Miles’ Franklin, is an annual prize dedicated to celebrating Australian women’s contribution to literature and is open to both fiction and non-fiction…
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Well somehow we’ve found ourselves in the middle of February with March fast approaching so it’s about time for another of our monthly features where we pick five books you need to be reading that month. Once again the five books have an international feel to them, with a handful of books from American writers,…
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In recent weeks, all across Australia, teachers and children have headed back into the classroom and jumped into the new school year. Classrooms have been organised and decorated. Lessons have been planned and resources printed and created. In 2017, however, there will be a new set of resources made available to primary school teachers across…
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Happy New Year! Welcome back to a new instalment of our recommended reading monthly feature (now with fresh new artwork). Hopefully you all had a great break away from work and enjoyed some downtime over the festive period. As always we’re here to bring you five books we think you need to be reading this…
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It’s December! The Festive Season… The Silly Season… You get the point. Christmas or not, we’re back with another five books we think you need to be reading this month – or gifting – so if you’ve still got a few people left to buy for, keep reading. This month we’ve got a movie-set memoir…
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You might have noticed that the world has gone a little bit Star Wars crazy these last couple of months. There’s been novels, movies – just released – memoirs by stars, and now a biography of the creator, the man behind it all – George Lucas. George Lucas: A Life is the new biography from…
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Mulga’s Magical Musical Creatures is the latest release from the Sydney-based artist, illustrator and poet Mulga (Joel Moore). Formerly a financial advisor, Mulga’s artwork can be found all over Australia, from cafes to shop fronts, from t-shirts to drink bottles and now once again on your bookshelves – or in this case your children’s bookshelves…
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