book reviews 2020 australia

The 14 Best Books of 2020

• December 11, 2020
• Affirm Press
• Allen and Unwin
• Andrew McGahan
• Anna Downes
• Brit Bennett
• C Pam Zhang
• ceridwen dovey
• Chris Flynn
• David Mitchell
• Hachette Australia
• Janice Hadlow
• Kathleen Jennings
• Ketan Joshi
• Mikey Robins
• Nardi Simpson
• NewSouth Publishing
• Pan MacMillan
• Penguin Australia
• Simon and Schuster Australia
• Stuart Turton

By now it goes without saying that 2020 has been a rough year. From wildfires to a global pandemic there has disruption and upheaval on a scale rarely, if ever, seen in “peacetime”. Pretty much every sector of society has taken a hit this year. And the publishing world, as with much of the Arts community, has not been immune from the disaster that has been this year.  

As with our friends in the music and theatre communities, events had to put on hold, move online, or be scrapped altogether. Book launches, book clubs, and other bookish events, if they happened at all, morphed into group zoom calls. Whilst, books kept getting published, and these events continued, if online, a lot of great books got lost in all the noise of 2020.  

Lockdowns and quarantines should have been the ideal time to crack open a book or two. But, a lot of people found their attention span was suddenly non-existent. Either that or fictional worlds just couldn’t keep up with the ever-changing situation of the real world. But equally, people have also been rediscovering a love of books. Some publishers have been seeing their best yearly performance in years. Safe to say plenty of people were buying books on sourdough, baking, racial injustice and bulk buying copies of Albert Camus’s The Plague .  

Despite all the upheaval 2020 has remained a great year for books; with its own fair share of big publishing events. We’re looking at you Hilary Mantel and Barack Obama. In short, there’s still plenty to celebrate, and plenty to look forward to in 2021.  

We in the Books Team have taken a moment to look back on the year’s releases. We’ve compiled a list of our favourite reads published this year. They’re books that have moved us, stuck with us, and helped lighten the load of a dodgy old year. Once again, we’ve come up with a pretty eclectic selection. Though fiction, perhaps understandably leads the way this year.  

Here, in no particular order, are our picks for the best books for 2020:

Mammoth – Chris Flynn

Simon: A compelling mash-up of historical, science and ecological fiction, all narrated by a sentient, and justifiably disgruntled, Mammoth skeleton. Think Ice Age but with more adult humour and an even snarkier main protagonist. It’s a fun read, a bit of a romp, but with this wonderfully strong, yet subtle, ecological message buried amongst the Egyptian Mummies, dinosaurs and stuffed penguins. (UQP)

Read our full review HERE  | Buy a copy HERE

The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett  

Emily: It was very hard to narrow down my books of the year for 2020. So I had to force myself to develop a criteria. Did I enjoy a book? Did it expand my worldview? And was I still thinking about it long after I had closed the covers. For someone who reads as much and as quickly as I do, sometimes I don’t remember the content of books I’ve enjoyed as well as I remember the impression that they made.

Not so, the case with The Vanishing Half , which admittedly has been one of the most talked about books of 2020. Following the stories of twin sisters whose lives diverge after they run away from their small down, and exploring the issue of colourism among the Black community in this fictional town, The Vanishing Half  has links to Nella Larsen’s classic Passing  and is a wonderful, readable, important book. It’s made me track down Bennet’s earlier book, The Mothers , and also Larsen’s Passing  to add to my 2021 reading list. Don’t you just love books that lead to more books, because I sure do. (Hachette)

The Rich Man’s House – Andrew McGahan

Jodie: When was the last time you stayed up all night to finish a book? For me, it was The Rich Man’s House. Fast paced, frightening, and compulsively readable. Don’t just eat the rich. Smash them with a mountain. (Allen & Unwin)

The Safe Place – Anna Downes

Lyn: Absolutely packed full of twists, The Safe Place may have been one of the most exciting Australian debuts of the year. A fast paced, tense and compelling page turner full of well realised characters and plenty of secrets to be revealed. (Affirm Press)

Windfall – Ketan Joshi 

Jess: I’m not a huge non-fiction reader but this book had me thoroughly hooked! A thorough investigation of the politics that have stifled renewable energy in Australia coupled with an optimistic outlook for the future make this a must-read for anyone engaging in the climate change debate. (NewSouth Publishing)

Buy a copy HERE

The Devil and the Dark Water – Stuart Turton

Simon: Inspired by a visit to the Shipwreck Museum in Fremantle, The Devil and the Dark Water is a clever mixture of detective, historical and adventure fiction. Set in 1634, a ship travelling from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam. No sooner has the ship set sail, does it run into trouble. A dead leper stalks the ship, strange symbols appear, and the ship’s store of livestock are slaughtered in the night. Meanwhile, the only person who can solve the mystery is locked in the bowels of the ship. The Devil and the Black Water is a real page turning romp; it’s a big book, but you’ll soon find yourself caught up in all the devilish action. Turton takes a few liberties with the history — the female characters play a more active role than their historical counterparts would’ve for example — but, that can be forgiven when the tale is as good as this. A remarkable book. (Bloomsbury)  

Life After Truth – Ceridwen Dovey

Emily: Whether or not this novel will pass the test of thinking about it long after I’ve finished remains to be seen, as I’ve only just read it. But, I’ve already recommended Ceridwen Dovey’s Life After Truth  to at least three people. It’s a crime novel, but it’s not. Those comparisons saying that it’s Big Little Lies  meets The Secret History  feel very accurate to me, as the book incorporates the complexity of Donna Tartt’s social world building with the compelling plot of a Liane Moriarty novel. But there’s something a little bit extra in there too. Life After Truth  is funny and current and was exactly what I needed for the tail end of 2020. I think this will prove to be a breakthrough for Dovey, and a well deserved one, because I’ve been a big fan of hers since Only the Animals . (Penguin)

The Song of the Crocodile – Nardi Simpson

Jodie: Beautiful, evocative prose lays out the tale of the Billymils, an Indigenous family trying to make their way in a small town that wants nothing to do with them. Simpson’s writing is stunning, and the whole thing brims with emotion. An absolute must read. (Hachette)

Reprehensible – Mikey Robins

Lyn: An informative and rollicking guide through the shameful behaviour of some of humanity’s most celebrated figures. It’ll leave you well armed for your next trivia night or pub quiz. It also leaves you with the comfortable thought that even the so-called best of us, are all a little bit appalling too. If you enjoy Horrible Histories or Drunk History you’ll love this book. (Simon & Schuster)

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London – Garth Nix

Jess: Urban fantasy is always so much fun, especially when one of your main protagonists is an eccentric young bookseller with a licence to kill. This fast-paced mystery is filled with wit and charm, and for anyone like me who has spent time in London, there is a level of nostalgia perfect for this book. The mixing of old and new, ancient and modern, makes London the perfect setting. (Allen and Unwin)

How Much Of These Hills Are Gold – C. Pam Zhang

Simon: Set against the backdrop of the American Gold Rush How Much Of These Hills Are Gold is an arresting, visceral powerful debut. The novel tells the story of two orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam, left to fend for themselves in an unforgiving land. It’s a wonderfully fresh take on the frontier tale, one that explores families, sibling rivalries, alongside Chinese symbolism and ideas of race as a country comes of age. (Hachette)

Flyaway – Kathleen Jennings

Jodie: Rich, descriptive, and a little bit eerie, Flyaway is part engrossing mystery, part cautionary fairy tale. Cleverly crafted and beautifully layered, this complex novella is a fine example of Australian gothic. (Pan MacMillan)

Utopia Avenue – David Mitchell

Simon: The author of  Cloud Atlas  and  The Bone Clocks turns his attention the music scenes of late Sixties and early Seventies Britain. On the face of it, a novel about a fictional band, the titular Utopia Avenue, but at the same time so much more – thanks to nods to Mitchell’s past works. It’s a hefty tome of a book, but such an enjoyable read, especially if you have an interest in the music of that period. Keep an eye out for the cameos, and pine for the fact Utopia Avenue is not a real band. (Sceptre/Hachette Australia)

The Other Bennet Sister – Janice Hadlow

Emily: Faithful to Austen’s original without being repetitive or boring, a return to Longbourn was just what I needed in 2020. The book was a welcome reminder that if Mary Bennet gets to be the heroine of her own story, so can we all! (Pan MacMillan)

Thanks to our reviewers Emily Paull, Jess Gately, Jodie Sloan, Lyn Harder and Simon Clark for their contributions to this list.

Simon Clark

Books Editor. An admirer of songs and reader of books. Simon has a PhD in English and Comparative Literature. All errant apostrophes are his own.

Top 10 of 2020

Celebrating the books and authors that got us all through 2020..

If there's one thing 2020 has taught us it's that there is comfort in a good book and a home-cooked meal. Here are the titles you turned to for entertainment, inspiration and escapism. Without further ado, let us introduce the bestselling books of the year...

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Australian Book Retailer of the Year 2021

The 100 bestselling books at Readings in 2020

Here are our 100 bestselling books from the past year..

Of the 100 books listed below…

• 43 are fiction
• 19 are non-fiction
• 11 are children’s books (6 picture books, 4 middle grade books and 1 non-fiction)
• 10 are cookbooks
• 8 are biographies or memoirs
• 5 are collected works (2 anthology, 3 single-authored collection)
• 4 are crime reads

Of the 102 authors (as well as editors, illustrators, translators, and more) listed here, 65 are Australian, 67 are women and 17 are First Nations writers.

Writer and historian Bruce Pascoe has three books in our top 100, two for an adult audience, and his award-winning book for children, Young Dark Emu: A Truer History . Other contributors to appear on this list multiple times include First Nations picture book creators and Senior elders Aunty Fay Muir and Aunty Joy Murphy, cookbook superstars Hetty McKinnon, Julia Busuttil Nishimura and Yotam Ottolenghi, local bestseller Trent Dalton and acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney.

Our list of bestselling 100 books serves as a stark reflection of the year we had, with long periods of home-schooling and lockdowns in much of the country. Not surprisingly, children’s books feature heavily, as do cookbooks suitable for avid home cooks ( Ottolenghi FLAVOUR , A Year of Simple Family Food ) and books that promote hope for our future ( Humankind: A Hopeful History ) or serve as a reminder of our resilience ( The Happiest Man on Earth ).

A surge in awareness of the long-established anti-racism movement encouraged many to read titles like Me and White Supremacy , Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race and How to Be an Antiracist , as well as vital fiction, history and memoir written by Black and First Nations writers.

100. A Couple of Things Before the End: Stories by Sean O'Beirne 99. Landing With Wings by Trace Balla 98. Living on Stolen Land by Ambelin Kwaymullina 97. Wilam: A Birrarung Story by Aunty Joy Murphy, Andrew Kelly & Lisa Kennedy 96. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi 95. Family by Aunty Fay Muir, Sue Lawson & Jasmine Seymour 94. The Coconut Children by Vivian Pham 93. The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall 92. Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith 91. Respect by Aunty Fay Muir, Sue Lawson & Lisa Kennedy 90. The Loudness of Unsaid Things by Hilde Hinton 89. How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life by Fiona Hardy 88. Finding Our Heart by Thomas Mayor & Blak Douglas 87. Our Home, Our Heartbeat by Adam Briggs, Kate Moon & Rachael Sarra 86. The Adversary by Ronnie Scott 85. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler 84. Talkin’ Up to the White Woman by Aileen Moreton-Robinson 83. The Girl, the Cat & the Navigator by Matilda Woods 82. The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman 81. Blueberries by Ellena Savage 80. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge 79. Vegan With Bite by Shannon Martinez 78. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 77. Preserving the Italian Way by Pietro Demaio 76. Stranger Than Kindness by Nick Cave 75. Ostro by Julia Busuttil Nishimura 74. There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett 73. The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay 72. Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan 71. Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump 70. The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte 69. White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo 68. After Australia by Michael Mohammed Ahmad 67. Young Dark Emu: A Truer History by Bruce Pascoe 66. Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko 65. Infinite Splendours by Sofie Laguna 64. Welcome To Country by Lisa Kennedy & Aunty Joy Murphy 63. Lucky’s by Andrew Pippos 62. The Overstory by Richard Powers 61. The Golden Maze by Richard Fidler 60. The Dressmaker’s Secret by Rosalie Ham 59. Untamed by Glennon Doyle 58. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy 57. Kokomo by Victoria Hannan 56. Educated by Tara Westover 55. Fire Country by Victor Steffensen 54. Weather by Jenny Offill 53. Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad 52. Community by Hetty McKinnon 51. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 50. Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia by Bruce Pascoe & Vicky Shukuroglou 49. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World by Tyson Yunkaporta 48. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman 47. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk 46. Bruny by Heather Rose 45. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins 44. Death in Daylesford by Kerry Greenwood 43. See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill 42. One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987-1995 by Helen Garner 41. The 130-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton 40. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given 39. The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku 38. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss 37. A Bigger Picture by Malcolm Turnbull 36. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett 35. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood 34. The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan 33. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld 32. The White Girl by Tony Birch 31. Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman 30. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton 29. Honeybee by Craig Silvey 28. Ottolenghi SIMPLE by Yotam Ottolenghi 27. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 26. Falastin by Sami Tamimi & Tara Wigley 25. What Is to Be Done by Barry Jones 24. A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu 23. To Asia, with Love by Hetty McKinnon 22. The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante 21. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney 20. A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough 19. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid 18. Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala 17. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan 16. Normal People by Sally Rooney 15. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart 14. A Year of Simple Family Food by Julia Busuttil Nishimura 13. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo 12. A Promised Land by Barack Obama 11. A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville

Our top 10 bestselling books are…

10. Beatrix Bakes by Natalie Paull 9. The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel 8. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 7. All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton 6. The Survivors by Jane Harper 5. Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe 4. Ottolenghi FLAVOUR by Yotam Ottolenghi & Ixta Belfrage 3. The Yield by Tara June Winch 2. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

And our number one bestselling book of 2020 is…

Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence is an inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture internal happiness, and it had a remarkable year in our shops, rarely slipping out of our weekly bestsellers. Using her own memories and the fascinating framework of phosphorescence and light, Baird explores friendships, family, world atrocities, climate change, and more. It seems in a year as fraught as 2020, we were all looking for an optimistic and reflective read!

Ed. note: The list combines sales from all Readings shops and our website. Where possible, different editions of titles have been combined to reflect total sales of each title. The list includes all genres. It covers sales from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020.

Phosphorescence

Julia Baird

In stock at 4 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 4 shops

The top 10 bestselling books of 2020

Beatrix Bakes

Natalie Paull

In stock at 8 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 8 shops

The Mirror and the Light

Hilary Mantel

Available to order, ships in approx 2 weeks Available to order

Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens

All Our Shimmering Skies

Trent Dalton

Available to order, ships in 10-14 days Available to order

The Survivors

Jane Harper

Available to order, ships in 5-9 days Available to order

Dark Emu

Bruce Pascoe

In stock at 9 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 9 shops

Ottolenghi FLAVOUR

Yotam Ottolenghi, Ixta Belfrage

In stock at 6 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 6 shops

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip Williams

The top 10 bestselling children’s books of 2020

Aunty Fay Muir,Sue Lawson

Wilam: A Birrarung Story

Aunty Joy Murphy,Andrew Kelly

How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life

Fiona Hardy,Fiona Hardy

In stock at 7 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 7 shops

Finding Our Heart

Thomas Mayo, Blak Douglas (illus.)

Our Home, Our Heartbeat

Adam Briggs

In stock at 3 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 3 shops

The Girl, the Cat & the Navigator

Matilda Woods, Anuska Allepuz (illus.)

In stock at 2 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 2 shops

Young Dark Emu: A Truer History

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The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2020

Adam morgan picks parul sehgal on raven leilani, merve emre on lewis carroll, and more.

The pandemic and the birth of my second daughter prevented me from reading most of the books I wanted to in 2020. But I was able to read vicariously  through book critics, whose writing was a true source of comfort and escape for me this year. I’ve long told my students that criticism is literature—a genre of nonfiction that can and should be as insightful, experimental, and compelling as the art it grapples with—and the following critics have beautifully proven my point. The word “best” is always a misnomer, but these are my personal favorite book reviews of 2020.

Nate Marshall on Barack Obama’s A Promised Land ( Chicago Tribune )

A book review rarely leads to a segment on The 11th Hour with Brian Williams , but that’s what happened to Nate Marshall last month. I love how he combines a traditional review with a personal essay—a hybrid form that has become my favorite subgenre of criticism.

“The presidential memoir so often falls flat because it works against the strengths of the memoir form. Rather than take a slice of one’s life to lay bare and come to a revelation about the self or the world, the presidential memoir seeks to take the sum of a life to defend one’s actions. These sorts of memoirs are an attempt maybe not to rewrite history, but to situate history in the most rosy frame. It is by nature defensive and in this book, we see Obama’s primary defensive tool, his prodigious mind and proclivity toward over-considering every detail.”

Merve Emre on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ( The Point )

I’m a huge fan of writing about books that weren’t just published in the last 10 seconds. And speaking of that hybrid form above, Merve Emre is one of its finest practitioners. This piece made me laugh out loud and changed the way I think about Lewis Carroll.

“I lie awake at night and concentrate on Alice,  on why my children have fixated on this book at this particular moment. Part of it must be that I have told them it ‘takes place’ in Oxford, and now Oxford—or more specifically, the college whose grounds grow into our garden—marks the physical limits of their world. Now that we can no longer move about freely, no longer go to new places to see new things, we are trying to find ways to estrange the places and objects that are already familiar to us.”

Parul Sehgal on Raven Leilani’s Luster ( The New York Times Book Review )

Once again, Sehgal remains the best lede writer in the business. I challenge you to read the opening of any  Sehgal review and stop there.

“You may know of the hemline theory—the idea that skirt lengths fluctuate with the stock market, rising in boom times and growing longer in recessions. Perhaps publishing has a parallel; call it the blurb theory. The more strained our circumstances, the more manic the publicity machine, the more breathless and orotund the advance praise. Blurbers (and critics) speak with a reverent quiver of this moment, anointing every other book its guide, every second writer its essential voice.”

Constance Grady on Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall ( Vox )

Restoring the legacies of ill-forgotten books is one of our duties as critics. Grady’s take on “the least famous sister in a family of celebrated geniuses” makes a good case for Wildfell Hall’ s place alongside Wuthering Heights  and Jane Eyre  in the Romantic canon.

“[T]he heart of this book is a portrait of a woman surviving and flourishing after abuse, and in that, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall feels unnervingly modern. It is fresh, shocking, and wholly new today, 200 years after the birth of its author.”

Ismail Muhammad on Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley ( The Atlantic )

Muhammad is a philosophical critic, so it’s always fun to see him tackle a book with big ideas. Here, he makes an enlightened connection between Wiener’s Silicon Valley memoir and Michael Lewis’s 1989 Wall Street exposé, Liar’s Poker.

“Like Lewis, Wiener found ‘a way out of unhappiness’ by writing her own gimlet-eyed generational portrait that doubles as a cautionary tale of systemic dysfunction. But if her chronicle acquires anything like the must-read status that Lewis’s antic tale of a Princeton art-history major’s stint at Salomon Brothers did, it will be for a different reason. For all her caustic insight and droll portraiture, Wiener is on an earnest quest likely to resonate with a public that has been sleepwalking through tech’s gradual reshaping of society.”

Hermione Hoby on Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs ( 4 Columns )

Hoby’s thousand-word review is a great example of a critic reading beyond the book to place it in context.

“When Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs  was first published in 2008, the then-governor of Tokyo, the ultraconservative Shintaro Ishihara, deemed the novel ‘unpleasant and intolerable.’ I wonder what he objected to? Perhaps he wasn’t into a scene in which the narrator, a struggling writer called Natsuko, pushes a few fingers into her vagina in a spirit of dejected exploration: ‘I . . . tried being rough and being gentle. Nothing worked.’”

Taylor Moore on C Pam Zhang’s How Much Of These Hills Is Gold ( The A.V. Club )

Describing Zhang’s wildly imaginative debut novel is hard, but Moore manages to convey the book’s shape and texture in less than 800 words, along with some critical analysis.

“Despite some characteristics endemic to Wild West narratives (buzzards circling prey, saloons filled with seedy strangers), the world of How Much Of These Hills Is Gold feels wholly original, and Zhang imbues its wide expanse with magical realism. According to local lore, tigers lurk in the shadows, despite having died out ‘decades ago’ with the buffalo. There also exists a profound sense of loss for an exploited land, ‘stripped of its gold, its rivers, its buffalo, its Indians, its tigers, its jackals, its birds and its green and its living.’”

Grace Ebert on Paul Christman’s Midwest Futures ( Chicago Review of Books )

I love how Ebert brings her lived experience as a Midwesterner into this review of Christman’s essay collection. (Disclosure: I founded the Chicago Review of Books five years ago, but handed over the keys in July 2019.)

“I have a deep and genuine love for Wisconsin, for rural supper clubs that always offer a choice between chicken soup or an iceberg lettuce salad, and for driving back, country roads that seemingly are endless. This love, though, is conflicting. How can I sing along to Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, and Merle Haggard knowing that my current political views are in complete opposition to the lyrics I croon with a twang in my voice?”

Michael Schaub on Bryan Washington’s Memorial ( NPR )

How do you review a book you fall in love with? It’s one of the most challenging assignments a critic can tackle. But Schaub is a pro; he falls in love with a few books every year.

“Washington is an enormously gifted author, and his writing—spare, unadorned, but beautiful—reads like the work of a writer who’s been working for decades, not one who has yet to turn 30. Just like Lot, Memorial  is a quietly stunning book, a masterpiece that asks us to reflect on what we owe to the people who enter our lives.”

Mesha Maren on Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season ( Southern Review of Books )

Maren opens with an irresistible comparison between Melchor’s irreverent novel and medieval surrealist art. (Another Disclosure: I founded the Southern Review of Books in early 2020.)

“Have you ever wondered what internal monologue might accompany the characters in a Hieronymus Bosch painting? What are the couple copulating upside down in the middle of that pond thinking? Or the man with flowers sprouting from his ass? Or the poor fellow being killed by a fire-breathing creature which is itself impaled upon a knife? I would venture to guess that their voices would sound something like the writing of Mexican novelist Fernanda Melchor.”

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May 2024, no. 464

This issue includes the winning essay in the Calibre Essay Prize. Scott Stephens considers clerical narcissism and brutality, and Patrick Mullins reviews a new profile of Peter Dutton, that former copper with a ‘suspicious instinct’. In her review of James Bradley’s Deep Water , Felicity Plunkett asks why we turn away from disaster’s proximity, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth explores an ‘inflexion point in Indigenous letters’, ex-ambassador Geoff Raby ponders ‘Chairman of everything’ Xi Jinping, and Alice Whitmore reviews the new-old Gabriel García Márquez. Essays from Heather Neilson and Maggie Nolan look at Gore Vidal’s posthumous life and the expansion of Australia’s storytelling database, AustLit. We review novels by Charmian Clift, Melanie Joosten, Liam Pieper, Siang Lu; poetry by David Brooks and Omar Sakr; film, music, memoir and more.

Full Contents

Advances - may 2024, message to subscribers, letters to the editor - may 2024, crimes of the cross: the anglican paedophile network of newcastle, its protectors and the man who fought for justice by anne manne, bad cop: peter dutton’s strongman politics (quarterly essay 93) by lech blaine, the political thought of xi jinping by steve tsang and olivia cheung, on kim scott: writers on writers by tony birch, deep water: the world in the ocean by james bradley, quantum drama: from the bohr-einstein debate to the riddle of entanglement by jim baggott and john l. heilbron, 2024 calibre essay prize (winner) | ‘why your hair is long & your stories short’ by tracey slaughter, like fire-hearted suns by melanie joosten, the end of the morning by charmian clift, ‘defeat device’, a new poem by lachlan brown, appreciation by liam pieper, until august by gabriel garcía márquez, ghost cities by siang lu, ‘information and transformation: the continuing expansion of austlit’ by maggie nolan, missing persons, or my grandmother’s secrets by clair wills, forbidden desire in early modern europe: male-male sexual relations, 1400-1750 by noel malcolm, the revolutionary temper: paris, 1748-1789 by robert darnton, no country for idealists: the making of a family of subversives by boris frankel, the shortest history of italy by ross king, alice™: the biggest untold story in the history of money by stuart kells, ‘some sort of afterlife: posthumous representations of gore vidal’ by heather neilson, the other side of daylight: new and selected poems by david brooks, the penguin book of elegy: poems of memory, mourning and consolation edited by andrew motion and stephen regan, woven: first nations poetic conversations from the fair trade project edited by anne-marie te whiu, birds and fish: life on the hawkesbury by robert adamson, edited by devin johnston, non-essential work by omar sakr, troubled minds: understanding and treating mental illness by sidney bloch and nick haslam, climate change and international history: negotiating science, global change, and environmental justice by ruth a. morgan, god and the angel: vivien leigh and laurence olivier’s tour de force of australia and new zealand by shiroma perera-nathan, becoming ella fitzgerald: the jazz singer who transformed american song by judith tick, open page with anne manne, selected stories by franz kafka, translated and edited by mark harman.

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The Voice to Parliament Handbook, Lola in the Mirror, Fourth Wing and Welcome to Sex among the 2024 ABIA winners

The Voice to Parliament Handbook by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien has won Book of the Year at the 2024 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs).

The book, published in the lead-up to the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum, also took out the General Non-Fiction Book of the Year and Social Impact Book of the Year.

Mayo, an Indigenous leader and one of the signatories of the Uluru Statement of the Heart, told ABC RN Breakfast in 2023 how he invited O'Brien to create a simple guide to the referendum to address misinformation that plagued the campaign.

"I thought a handbook — something simple that people could hold onto, pass around and share with others to help them find the truth — would be important," he said.

The awards acknowledged in a statement that even though the Voice to Parliament was voted down, the guide "stands as a poignant reminder of a significant moment in Australia's history".

O'Brien, a Walkley Award-winning journalist and former host of The 7.30 Report and Four Corners on ABC TV, explained why he was eager to work with Mayo on the project:

"When I see something as important as The Voice and the challenge it lays out and the opportunity it lays out for all Australians … I want to do what I can to help the process of debate and discussion and to clear up the misunderstandings, the confusion and the misinformation because I think this is such an important moment in our history."

Trent Dalton and Pip Williams among 2024 winners

The 2024 ABIAs, presented at a ceremony in Melbourne on May 9, recognised the achievements of authors, illustrators, editors and publishers across 22 categories.

Trent Dalton — who swept the 2019 ABIAs with his debut novel Boy Swallows Universe — won the Literary Fiction Book of the Year for his third novel, Lola in the Mirror (4th Estate, HarperCollins Publishers).

The novel — which tells the story of a mother and daughter on the run from a violent past — tackles the issue of homelessness, which Dalton says is at crisis levels in Brisbane as the city prepares for the 2030 Olympic Games.

"I can't see a more urgent problem than a mum in a car doing Mathletics with her 10-year-old daughter because they can't go home," he told ABC RN's The Book Show .

The Bookbinder of Jericho (Affirm Press) — Adelaide author Pip Williams's follow-up to her bestselling 2020 debut , The Dictionary of Lost Words — took out the General Fiction Book of the Year and Marketing Strategy of the Year.

Set during World War I, Williams's novel centres on Peggy and Maude, two young sisters from a working-class background who work in the bindery of Oxford University Press.

"There's no shortage of World War I books or World War II books … but what I found is that most of those books either portray the experience of men in the trenches or women waiting for someone to come home, or they're about espionage," Williams told The Book Show .

Anna Funder, a previous Miles Franklin Literary Award winner, won the Biography Book of the Year for Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House Australia).

Funder wrote Wifedom after discovering a series of letters written by George Orwell's wife, Eileen, that revealed a side of Orwell not seen in the six official biographies devoted to the writer.

She considered using the letters as material in a fictionalisation of Eileen's story, but settled instead on an unorthodox mix of memoir, fiction and biography.

"A novel wouldn't show the sly ways in which history, in the form of these biographies, has hidden [Eileen]," she told The Book Show .

Sydney author Madeleine Gray took out the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year for her debut, Green Dot (Allen & Unwin), a " sad girl novel " relating the emotional fallout of a 20-something's romantic relationship with her much older workmate .

Welcome to Sex by Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes and illustrated by Jenny Latham (Hardie Grant Children's Publishing) — which BIG W controversially removed from sale from its physical stores after critics allegedly abused staff over the book's content — took out Book of the Year for Older Children.

Edenglassie (University of Queensland Press) by Melissa Lucashenko won Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year, while Rebecca Yarros's viral #BookTok hit and New York Times bestseller Fourth Wing (Piatkus, Hachette Australia) was named International Book of the Year.

Magabala Books, an Indigenous publishing house based in Broome in Western Australia, won Small Publisher of the Year, while Publisher of the Year went to Penguin Random House Australia.

​​Australian Book Industry Award Winners 2024

ABIA Book of the Year

The Voice to Parliament Handbook, Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien (Hardie Grant Publishing)

Audio Book of the Year

The Teacher's Pet, written and narrated by Hedley Thomas (Macmillan Australia Audio, Pan Macmillan Australia)

Biography Book of the Year

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life, Anna Funder (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House Australia)

Book of the Year for Older Children (ages 13+)

Welcome to Sex, written by Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, illustrated by Jenny Latham (HGCP Non- Fiction, Hardie Grant Children's Publishing)

Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7–12)

It's the Sound of the Thing, Maxine Beneba Clarke (HGCP Older Readers, Hardie Grant Children's Publishing)

Children's Picture Book of the Year (ages 0–6)

A Life Song, written by Jane Godwin, illustrated Anna Walker (Puffin, Penguin Random House Australia)

General Fiction Book of the Year

The Bookbinder of Jericho, Pip Williams (Affirm Press)

General Non-Fiction Book of the Year

The Voice to Parliament Handbook, Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien (Hardie Grant Explore, Hardie Grant Publishing)

Illustrated Book of the Year

Australian Abstract, Amber Creswell Bell (Thames & Hudson Australia, Thames & Hudson)

International Book of the Year

Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (Piatkus, Hachette Australia)

Literary Fiction Book of the Year

Lola in the Mirror, Trent Dalton (4th Estate, HarperCollins Publishers)

Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year

Edenglassie, Melissa Lucashenko (University of Queensland Press)

Small Publishers' Children's Book of the Year

Artichoke to Zucchini: an alphabet of delicious things from around the world, Alice Oehr (Scribble, Scribe Publications)

Social Impact Book of the Year

The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year

Green Dot, Madeleine Gray (Allen & Unwin)

Lloyd O'Neil Hall of Fame Award

Fiona Stager, co-owner of Avid Reader and Where the Wild Things Are

Pixie O'Harris Award

Jane Godwin

Bookshop of the Year

Fullers Bookshop (TAS)

Commissioning Editor of the Year

Catherine Milne (HarperCollins Publishers)

Marketing Strategy of the Year

The Bookbinder of Jericho (Affirm Press)

​​Small Publisher of the Year

Magabala Books

Publisher of the Year

Penguin Random House Australia

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From a Dead Dog to a Made-Up Meeting: Takeaways From Kristi Noem’s Book

After a rough start to the rollout of her memoir, the South Dakota governor has continued to defend shooting her dog and to deflect on a false story about meeting Kim Jong-un.

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By Chris Cameron

• May 7, 2024

In one sense, Kristi Noem has had a wildly successful rollout of her new book: America can’t stop talking about it.

But all the chatter is not for the reasons Ms. Noem, the conservative governor of South Dakota, might have expected when she finished “No Going Back,” a memoir that recounts her political career. The book appears aimed at raising her profile as a MAGA loyalist while former President Donald J. Trump weighs his choices for running mate . Just a month ago, Ms. Noem had been widely seen as a contender.

Instead of talking up her conservative bona fides, however, Ms. Noem has spent the last week on national television defending a grisly account in the book in which she shoots her dog in a gravel pit. The killing of the dog, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket, has drawn bipartisan criticism and scrutiny.

The book, published on Tuesday, includes a number of other noteworthy details, some of which Ms. Noem has discussed in recent interviews. Here are five takeaways.

Noem has a lot of criticism for other Republicans.

Ms. Noem’s account of her time in office — first as South Dakota’s sole House representative and then as governor — includes many stories that broadly criticize Republicans for their electoral failures, while also targeting figures who have drawn the ire of Mr. Trump.

She describes a phone conversation she had with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race in March, claiming that Ms. Haley had threatened her because they were both prominent Republican women. Chaney Denton, a spokeswoman for Ms. Haley, has said Ms. Noem’s account of the conversation was inaccurate, and “just plain weird.”

Ms. Noem also blames Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee , for the poor performance of Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms, and criticizes her for not supporting Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — though Ms. Noem herself writes in that section that “Trump lost in 2020.”

“We got lazy, and no one was held accountable,” she says, adding that Mr. Trump was wrongly blamed for Republicans’ underperforming. She also called out the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, though she says she has hope for 2024 and is “willing to help.”

Ms. Noem devotes a section of the book to RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — a favorite pejorative of Mr. Trump that he has deployed against critics within the party.

“In many ways, these political creatures are worse than some donkeys,” Ms. Noem wrote, referring to Democrats in that section as “donkeys.”

But Ms. Noem also takes a swipe at some Republicans on the far right in her party, saying that they have contributed to recent election losses.

“Losing sucks. But Republicans happen to be great at it,” she writes in one section, adding: “Candidates talk like crazy people, make wild claims, and offer big promises. And they lose. Of course, there are some crazy candidates, but I’m not talking about them. This is about good folks who choose the wide path of bomb throwing and parroting whatever’s on social media, as opposed to speaking rationally and humbly offering solutions.”

Noem says shooting her dog was a “difficult” choice, and suggests one of President Biden’s dogs should be put down, too.

Ms. Noem has repeatedly defended her decision to kill her dog , Cricket, and her politically baffling choice to include the anecdote in her memoir.

In the book, she describes an incident where Cricket killed a neighbor’s chickens and says the dog tried to bite Ms. Noem as she sought to restrain her. After taking Cricket home and shooting her, Ms. Noem writes, “I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done. Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat.”

The goat, Ms. Noem writes, “was nasty and mean,” smelled terrible and often chased her children around. So she dragged him out to the gravel pit, too — but didn’t kill him with the first shot, and had to go back to her truck for more ammunition to finish the job.

In an interview with Sean Hannity last week, Ms. Noem said she had included the story in the book to illustrate the “tough, challenging decisions that I’ve had to make throughout my life.”

In an interview on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, Ms. Noem called attention to another part of the book in which she suggested that one of President Biden’s dogs, a bite-prone German shepherd named Commander, should also be put down.

In a section of the memoir discussing what Ms. Noem would do on her first day in office as president, she wrote that “the first thing I’d do is make sure Joe Biden’s dog was nowhere on the grounds (‘Commander, say hello to Cricket for me’).” Ms. Noem made a similar suggestion in her interview on Sunday.

“You’re saying he should be shot?” asked the CBS host Margaret Brennan.

“That what’s the president should be accountable to,” Ms. Noem replied.

The print edition of the book includes a false anecdote about Noem meeting Kim Jong-un.

Ms. Noem writes in the memoir that she met with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, while serving on the House Armed Services Committee.

“I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders — some who wanted our help, and some who didn’t,” she writes. “I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all). Dealing with foreign leaders takes resolve, preparation, and determination.”

This was an error, according to Ian Fury, the chief of communications for Ms. Noem. Ms. Noem has said in later interviews that she takes “responsibility for the change,” but has not explained why the anecdote was included or whom she could have been referring to, if not Mr. Kim. She has also pushed back when the false anecdote has been characterized as a mistake.

“This is an anecdote that I asked to have removed, because I think it’s appropriate at this point in time,” Ms. Noem said in her interview on “Face the Nation.” “But I’m not going to talk to you about those personal meetings that I have had with world leaders.”

Noem gives a glowing portrait of Trump, and alludes to her future aspirations.

Ms. Noem heaps praise on the former president in her memoir, describing him as “a breaker and a builder,” writing, “He was relentlessly attacked for personal failures — and fictional ones — but stayed in the race and never wavered.”

She also reminds readers that she defended Mr. Trump in a speech the day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, “regardless of the fact that what unfolded on January 6 was undeniably ugly.”

At one point, she also says that Mr. Trump, “in some funny ways,” is similar to her young granddaughter.

“I see similarities between Trump and my granddaughter, Miss Addie (that’s what I call her),” Ms. Noem writes. “She’s almost three years old and, in my unbiased view, one of the most brilliant human beings I’ve ever met (tied for first place with my grandson, of course!)”

But while Ms. Noem may be angling for a place at Mr. Trump’s side as his running mate, she insists in the memoir that if she is picked, it should not be because she’s a woman.

“I’m often asked by the national media if I think Donald Trump should pick a woman to be vice president,” Ms. Noem writes. “My answer is always about choosing the best people for the job.”

The final chapter of the book focuses not on any vice-presidential aspirations, but rather on what she would do on “Day 1” if elected president herself. It begins with a quote from Mr. Trump saying in December that if elected as president, he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1.”

Along with putting federal property up for sale and convening a bipartisan working group on immigration, Ms. Noem writes, she would invite the Obamas and Bidens over to the White House for a screening of “The Grey,” a Liam Neeson film about battling wolves that she describes earlier in the book as among her favorites.

Noem offers a somewhat exaggerated account of protests outside the White House in 2020.

In the book’s introduction, Ms. Noem writes that a chaotic protest outside Mr. Trump’s 2020 nomination for re-election , held at the White House in August, was a pivotal moment for her — and inspired her to “live a life of significance — no matter where that commitment took me.” She wrote of a Washington under siege.

“We could hear explosions and screams in the distance,” she wrote. “On the other side of the fence, sounds of shouting and chaos. I smelled what we guessed was tear gas. We were trapped.”

But her account of a “massive and, at times, violent protest” doesn’t align with contemporaneous reports.

There was a significant demonstration outside the White House during Mr. Trump’s renominating event — one that tried to disrupt his acceptance speech by making noise . Reports from the time described the demonstration as “generally peaceful” and “significantly smaller” than the demonstrations that were forcibly dispersed by Mr. Trump earlier in the spring . There is also no evidence that tear gas was deployed that night.

Chris Cameron covers politics for The Times, focusing on breaking news and the 2024 campaign. More about Chris Cameron

Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Presidential Race

President Biden announced the creation of an A.I. data center in Wisconsin , highlighting one of his administration’s biggest economic accomplishments in a battleground state — and pointing to a significant failure by former President Donald Trump.

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of the top contenders to become Trump’s running mate, will host a fund-raiser that includes Republican donors who so far have been resistant to Trump .

After years in which his privacy has been fiercely guarded, Barron Trump, the former president’s youngest son, was chosen to be one of Florida’s delegates to the Republican National Convention .

Sensing Shift on Abortion:  Are Latinas — once considered too religious or too socially conservative to support abortion rights — changing their views on the issue? Demorcats are optimistic .

A Wild Card in Texas:  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, expects to be on the ballot in Texas. His addition could lend a hand to the Democratic challenger seeking to unseat Senator Ted Cruz .

1968 Looms:  As Chicago prepares to host the Democratic National Convention in August, the city wants to shed memories of chaos  from half a century ago even as protests are growing.

Talk of Escape:  At Washington dinner parties, dark jokes abound  about where to go into exile if Trump reclaims the White House.

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The 25 best Australian books of 2023: Richard Flanagan, Alexis Wright, Robyn Davidson and others

Just in time for your Christmas shopping: Guardian Australia’s critics and staff pick out the best of the best

• Which Australian books did you love this year? Join us in the comments
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Question 7 by Richard Flanagan

It’s a big call to make for a Booker winner, but Question 7 could be Richard Flanagan’s greatest yet. This elegiac, chaptered essay touches on ideas that have haunted his fiction for years: his father was a PoW in Japan for three years during the second world war and was freed after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thousands died – but because of that event, 16 years later Flanagan would be born in Tasmania.

Question 7 is Flanagan’s painful and powerful examination of the psychic implications of what it means to be alive directly because so many people died – a deeply existential conundrum that is so very personal and so very universal, that it’s hard to shake. – Sian Cain

Read more: Question 7 by Richard Flanagan review – this deeply moving book is his finest work

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Wifedom by Anna Funder

Hamish Hamilton

Anna Funder has added a brilliant, eye-opening perspective to the literature about George Orwell. Courage was needed for the Australian author to put her own human-rights hero under feminist scrutiny, and Funder charged ahead with scholarship, imagination and outrage. Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Orwell’s first wife, emerges as an educated, adventurous woman who subsumed her talents into supporting his career and boosting his creativity, while Orwell was a neglectful, unfaithful and even cruel husband.

Wifedom has been highly acclaimed, controversial and divisive , stimulating the liveliest literary conversations of the year. – Susan Wyndham

Read more: Wifedom by Anna Funder review – a brilliant reckoning with George Orwell to change the way you read ; Sadistic and misogynistic? Row erupts over sex claims in book about George Orwell’s marriage

Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright

Sometimes a novel adopts a unique language you can only learn to speak as you read it. Exhibit A: Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy. Wright’s furiously conceived portrait of the death and life of a fictional Aboriginal community in the 21st century roils with the immiseration wrought by the Howard-era Northern Territory intervention, and an all-encompassing metaphysical cataclysm of uncertain origin.

The novel’s cast of players is large, but it is Tommyhawk, the youngest member of the book’s embattled central family, who proves one of the great characters of Australian literature. Like many antiheroes before him, Tommyhawk defies Manichean notions of good and evil: some villains are just lost innocents. – Declan Fry

Read more: Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright review – how can one novel contain so much?

Anam by André Dao

Sometimes a book quiets you from the first page: you’re struck by a calm, silver intelligence and intensity of thought. In this novel – which branches gracefully into memoir, essay and something beyond – Dao, or a young father very like him, riddles over the history of his family.

At the centre is the story of his grandfather, a political prisoner in Vietnam’s Chí Hòa. From there, he can begin to comb through the claims of loss and memory; of duty and of love. This beautiful, difficult book is about waiting and what inheritances you might dare to claim. Dao has poured everything into it and the result is something exceptional. – Imogen Dewey

Read more: Anam by André Dao review – decades-spanning family epic examines the difficulties of memory

The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop

The Anniversary has stayed with me because of its fine balance between taut suspense, dark and complex emotion, and something that would be cheekiness if it weren’t so pointed and profound. The protagonist is a novelist who has lived in the shadow of her film-maker husband for years, and her reflections on the treatment and reception of women writers are devastatingly sharp. They recur across a gripping plot involving the husband’s disappearance at sea, and ever-shifting revelations about the relationship, the work, the past.

It is beautifully crafted, utterly compelling and great fun as well. – Fiona Wright

The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas

Allen and Unwin

In Christos Tsiolkas’ previous book, 7 1/2 , the autofictional narrator is taken to task for choosing to write not about politics, but beauty. “We have grown old,” his friend says: “And you have grown soft.” It’s a neat way to frame Tsiolkas’ next novel, which is all softness and tenderness: a love story between two men in their 50s, trying to reconcile their personal regrets and heartbreaks as they meet across a “ rough hands/smooth hands ” class divide.

As always with Tsiolkas, the carnal and pungent sex might not be to your tastes – but stick with it for the sweetness of the romance and the most stressful dinner party scene since Edward Albee. – Steph Harmon

Read more: The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas review – carnal but tender love story ; A walk with Christos Tsiolkas: ‘I don’t understand wanting to live a youthful life forever’

Unfinished Woman by Robyn Davidson

Robyn Davidson – who shot to fame trekking with camels across Australia – had always applied a “scorched-earth policy” to her past. But after a shattering midlife breakdown, the Tracks author felt compelled to sift back through the ruins – from her tumultuous relationship with Salman Rushdie to her mother’s suicide in suburban Queensland when Davidson was 11 – to ask herself: “What is the relationship between my mother’s despair, and my own?”

In a memoir that’s as evocative and restless as its author – flitting from Doris Lessing’s abode in London to the Indian home of her Rajasthani prince “companion” – Davidson interrogates what family, freedom and home mean when you never truly belong anywhere. – Janine Israel

Read more: The woman who walked alone across the desert: what Robyn Davidson learned by risking everything

Shirley by Ronnie Scott

Penguin Random House

Scott’s debut novel, The Adversary, spent a long, febrile summer with a cadre of hunky cads – the kind who wield side-eyes like weapons at the Fitzroy pool. His follow-up, Shirley, feels equally as catty and equally as uncanny.

Set in the first few months of 2020 – catastrophe impending – it follows a thirtysomething narrator and her various exploits with an inept ex-boyfriend, a Gorman-core neighbour and an estranged mother – a former celebrity chef who drops in only to wreak emotional havoc. Looming large is Shirley: the family house abandoned after a vaguely remembered – though gruesome – incident. The mystery streaks through the book like blood. Things get weird. – Michael Sun

Read more: Shirley by Ronnie Scott review – finally, a male author who brilliantly writes women

Gunflower by Laura Jean McKay

McKay’s acclaimed 2020 debut The Animals in That Country saw a pandemic spread the globe that enabled animals and humans to communicate with each other. This fiercely inventive, beguiling short story collection returns to similar ideas, around animal consciousness (one is told from the perspective of chickens in a battery farm), science and the climate crisis.

The titular story, named after its setting – an Icelandic boat where women around the world can get abortions in international waters – is particularly outstanding. For fans of George Saunders, Naomi Alderman and Margaret Atwood. – Sian Cain

Read more: Gunflower by Laura Jean McKay review – exciting speculative tales

Homecoming by Kate Morton

Allen & Unwin

When Jess returns to Sydney from London to be with her dying grandmother, she unwittingly stumbles upon a long-buried secret, and a connection to a well-to-do family whose 1959 Adelaide murder remains unsolved.

Morton is a master storyteller who effortlessly criss-crosses time periods, geographies and protagonists in this sweeping saga of family secrets, illicit love affairs and finding home. A rich, vivid and gripping epic by one of Australia’s biggest exports, Homecoming is an indulgent read at over 600 pages: atmospheric and evocative in its descriptions and its sometimes-protracted, winding storyline, but worth it for escapism alone. – Sarah Ayoub

Crossing the Line by Nick McKenzie

When journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters brought the war crimes of decorated Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith to light in 2017, it sowed the seeds for a defamation case that made Australian history. McKenzie’s account of what went on behind the scenes is compelling, fast-paced and accessible storytelling that emphasises the power of investigative journalism and the importance of media integrity.

Entertaining is probably not the right word to use, but this is an unexpected page-turner: the twists and turns are electrifying, and McKenzie’s dogged pursuit of truth and justice admirable. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Hear more: Nick McKenzie was interviewed by Guardian Australia’s Ben Doherty in an episode of our podcast Ben Roberts Smith vs The Media

I’d Rather Not by Robert Skinner

Buy two copies of I’d Rather Not – one for yourself and one to lend – because this is the kind of impish little book that disappears from shelves. Less a memoir than a series of escapades, Robert Skinner’s swashbuckling debut sees him tussle with an ornery camel, the robodebt goons and the ever-fickle literary gods. We know he’s destined to lose, but oh, how glorious failure can be when you put your heart into it.

Skinner has been compared to Oscar Wilde, but his book is as self-effacing as it is quip-witted. I’d planned to include a quote or two – take a joyride on Skinner’s comedy coat-tails – but my (latest) copy is missing. – Beejay Silcox

Search History by Amy Taylor

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This incredibly online novel is for the girlies who simply can’t help but lurk. Protagonist Ana is delighted when she meets a man IRL rather than via the drudgery of the apps, but is quickly sucked into the digital vortex anyway when she goes down the social media rabbit hole and becomes obsessed with his dead ex.

There are plenty of peek-through-your-fingers cringe moments in this pacy and juicy novel, which hits the nail on the head with its depiction of the thrills and dangers of modern dating. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Read more: Search History by Amy Taylor review – sharp and pacy cautionary tale for the extremely online

God Forgets About the Poor by Peter Polites

Ultimo Press

So many autobiographical books on this list play with the genre, and Polites’ latest is no exception. It begins with a stream-of-consciousness chapter, told to the narrator (an apparent stand-in for the author) by his acerbic mother; she wants him to write her story, but: “Try and write something good this time.”

The resulting book is packed with tenderness, love, humour, magic and myth. From her birth in Lefkada to her young adulthood in Athens and her migration to Australia, we are told the story of not just this woman but of migrant Australia and diasporic Greece; and shown how history reaches forward through generations to make us who we become. – Steph Harmon

Read more: God Forgets About the Poor by Peter Polites review – the author’s most striking work yet

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

Talking to a friend about this book the other night, I clocked again that it’s taught me more about Australia than anything I’ve ever read, fiction or otherwise. “Educational” carries very particular connotations, but none of them apply to Lucashenko’s vivid, moving historical opus.

With strands of appalling violence, but also of romance, community and the transcendent joy of First Nations culture, she binds together two stories: one from Brisbane/Meanjin now, one from the city’s colonial beginnings. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll take sides! You’ll see just how many problems could be fixed by affordable housing! A brilliant storyteller on raucously good form, I can’t recommend this enough. – Imogen Dewey

Read more: Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko review – Miles Franklin winner slices open Australia’s past and present

The Bell of the World by Gregory Day

Transit Lounge

Gerald Murnane’s litmus test for a story’s worth was whether it leaves an enduring image upon the mind. By this metric, Gregory Day’s The Bell of the World seared me like a branding iron.

Taking place in the early 20th century in post-federation, colonial Australia, the novel follows Sarah, a young woman living an unsettled existence after her parents’ acrimonious divorce. When she moves to outback Victoria, however, she experiences a great osmosis – like a “long clench releasing” – with nature and its flora and fauna. This is generous, mellifluous eco-fiction that engenders in its readers a similar shift, a great light breaking. – Jack Callil

Read more: The Bell of the World by Gregory Day review – an electric crescendo of Australian nature writing

Paradise Estate by Max Easton

A punk musician, a cam girl, an activist couple and a woman crippled by grief move into a mouldy Sydney share house. So begins the second novel from author Max Easton, a sequel of sorts to 2021’s The Magpie Wing .

Like his debut, Paradise Estate has plenty to say; incisive about class, gentrification and the true motivations behind some of the left’s most vocal “allies”. But what’s most enjoyable is its essential Sydney-ness, including how vividly Easton paints a house full of people you don’t always like but who feel very real and recognisable. And the writing is exceptional – the first and last pages, especially, will stick with you. – Katie Cunningham

Read more: Paradise Estate by Max Easton review – a layered, aching portrait of millennial malaise

Women and Children by Tony Birch

Like many of Birch’s short stories and novels, Women and Children takes place in the mid-1960s and is set in one of the less affluent (now gentrified) suburbs of inner-city Melbourne. Birch’s child protagonist is Joe Cluny, an 11-year-old boy who struggles with the disciplinarian nuns at his school.

Joe’s family are as memorable a cast of characters as you will find – the relationship between Joe and his grandfather Charlie is simply beautiful. When domestic violence threatens Joe’s aunt Oona, the bonds of family are tested. This is another elegant and powerful book from Birch. – Joseph Cummins

Read more: Women & Children by Tony Birch review – a new high for the master craftsman ; A walk with Tony Birch: ‘I got into a lot of fights. I was a very good street boxer’

Dress Rehearsals by Madison Godfrey

Madison Godfrey’s second collection was released during Sydney WorldPride and the two are intertwined for me. These often-funny poems can be read as memoir, as Godfrey takes us through their early life of emo, fandoms and Harry Styles (he gets a poem, as does Halsey; Lara Croft gets two!); to their encounters with the complexities of girlhood; and towards a non-binary identity and a queer community painted with exquisite, breathless joy.

Ode to My Kneecaps is a favourite: “There are so many odes to collarbones / I’m sorry I didn’t look lower sooner. / You unassuming barricade, / A mountain I can curl around / on the train ride home.” – Steph Harmon

Read more: I don’t feel like I was born into the wrong body. There’s not a right or wrong way to be trans

Frank Moorhouse: A Life by Catharine Lumby

Catharine Lumby’s slim life of Frank Moorhouse is the first of two published biographies of the avant-garde author who died in 2022 (the second, by Matthew Lamb, came out this month ). As a friend, she had intimate access to the man and his huge archive. And as an academic journalist, she finds resonant connections in his complex personal life, times and writing within thematic chapters such as Living in the ’70s: Sex, Gender and Politics and The Moorhouse Method: Rules for Living.

With wit, insight and sensitive omissions, Lumby unconsciously echoes the “discontinuous narrative” form that Moorhouse applied to his fiction, sparking questions for future biographers. – Susan Wyndham

Read more: ‘Way too much information, Frank’: I wanted to be Frank Moorhouse. Instead I became his biographer

Ravenous Girls by Rebecca Burton

Finlay Lloyd

This short novel about family dysfunction, the fickleness of teenage friendship, mother-daughter symbiosis, and illness, packs an almighty emotional punch. The family of 14-year-old first-person protagonist Frankie is stressed to breaking point when her older sister Justine becomes an inpatient at an eating disorders unit. But this is a family already shaken by the death of a father and husband, 11 years earlier.

Chroniclers of fictional family life don’t always understand that trauma is most often multilayered, like scar tissue. Just how fully author Rebecca Burton grasps this is evident in her delicate characterisations and sometimes heartbreaking plot. – Paul Daley

Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh

Affirm Press

Amid the deaths of more than 18,000 Palestinians in the current Israel–Gaza war, according to the Gaza health ministry, this lyrical debut novel is as much a story for the present as it is the past. Saleh writes from where much of it began: with a newly widowed and pregnant Palestinian’s initial dispossession of her homeland and then, by extension, her descendants’ ongoing intergenerational trauma and displacement, as refugees in Lebanon, Egypt and Australia.

Delicately and boldly written, this book highlights the layered realities of Arab and Muslim women as wives, daughters and sisters, with a critical tenderness. – Sarah Ayoub

Read more: Sara M Saleh: ‘I want to know the system and its flaws, so I know how to undo it, transcend it’

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

One of the most anticipated debuts of the year, Madeleine Gray’s razor-sharp novel doesn’t disappoint. Green Dot follows 24-year-old Hera, bored with her life and where it’s headed. When she begins a doomed love affair with older colleague Arthur, she decides this relationship might be the thing to give it all meaning.

Gray manages to make something fresh out of this well-trodden territory: her approximation of millennial life and language is both on-point and very, very funny. But underneath all the sass and sarcasm, there’s real vulnerability – the bind of the modern young woman. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Read more: Green Dot by Madeleine Gray review – a sassy love story with a bleak worldview

Secret Third Thing by Dan Hogan

Cordite Books

Named after the 2022 meme of being neither x nor y (joking or serious, productive or relaxing) but a Secret Third Thing, Dan Hogan’s debut poetry book bashes against the confines of how we articulate ourselves and live.

It’s also very funny, an onslaught of absurdity with lines like, “So drunk at late night shopping right now Sent from my iPhone.” from how_to_be_the_best_worker_in_the_world.ppt. But as Hogan details a world of debasing Centrelink calls, awful landlords and the cruelty of late capitalism, the jokes act as momentary serotonin distractions, questioning what ceaseless scrolling obscures and upholds. – Jared Richards

Eleven Letters to You by Helen Elliott

This lovely memoir by Elliott, a much-admired literary critic, examines periods of her life through letters to the people who shaped her when she was growing up in Australia’s burbs in the 1950s and 1960s. The neighbour who lent her the books that would change her life ; the teacher who taught her about art; the attractive male boss who became “an instruction in both desire and decency”; and all the bold women who revealed to her how to live a life of one’s own.

I keep thinking about this book – it is one to return to. – Sian Cain

• Australian books
• Australia year in review 2023
• Autobiography and memoir
• History books
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