BiP eNews: March New Releases

Charlotte
David Foenkinos    $24.99 HB

Charlotte Salomon is born into a family stricken by suicide and a country at war - but there is something exceptional about her. She has a gift, a talent for painting. And she has a great love, for a brilliant, eccentric musician. But just as she is coming in to her own as an artist, death is coming to control her country. The Nazis have come to power and, a Jew in Berlin, her life is narrowing - she is kept from her art, torn from her love and her family, chased from her country. And still she is not safe, not from the madness that has hunted her family, or the one gripping Europe...Charlotte is a heartbreaking true story - inspiring, unflinching, awful, hopeful - of a life filled with curiosity, animated by genius and cut short by hatred. A beautifully, lucidly told memorial, it has become an international sensation.

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Exit West
Mohsin Hamid    $32.99 HB

In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, Saeed and Nadia share a cup of coffee, and he makes her smile. A few days later they go for dinner, and over time they share many more meals. They try not to notice the sound of bombs getting closer every night, the radio announcing new laws, the public executions. Eventually the problem is too big to ignore: it's not safe for Nadia to live alone, she must move in with Saeed's family, even though they are not married and that too is a problem. Meanwhile, rumours are spreading of strange black doors in secret places across the city, doors that lead to London or San Francisco, Greece or Dubai. One day soon, when the streets are no longer usable, the time will come for Nadia and Saeed to seek out one such door, joining the great outpouring of those fleeing a collapsing city, hoping against hope, looking for their place in the world. An extraordinary story of love and hope, travelling from the Middle East to London and beyond, from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

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In the Name of the Family: A Novel of Machiavelli and the Borgias
Sarah Dunant    $29.99 PB

1502 and Renaissance Italy is in turmoil. Backed by the money and wily power of his ageing father Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia is soaring like a military comet, carving out a state for the Borgia dynasty. From Florence, a young diplomat, one Niccolo Machiavelli, is sent to shadow him to keep track of the danger. While many tremble in the presence of this brilliant unscrupulous man, Machiavelli is entranced and the relationship he forges with Cesare allows him - and us - to witness history in the making. Meanwhile, the Pope's beloved daughter Lucrezia is on her way to a third dynastic marriage in the state of Ferrara, where if she is to survive she must fast produce an heir for the rival Este family. Cesare holds his sister dear, but striving always for conquest rather than conciliation, he pays little mind to her precarious position. As the Borgia enemies gather, in Rome, the pope grows older and ever more cantankerous. Sarah Dunant dramatizes the rise of one of history's most fascinating characters, Niccolo Machiavelli, during the formative years of his life. In the Name of the Family breathes new life into the daring and corruption of a family that history will never forget. This is a moment from which no one will emerge unscathed.

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Corpus
Rory Clements    $29.99 PB

A new novel for fans of spy thrillers. Corpus is set in 1936 as Europe is falling apart with the rise of Nazism. Nancy, a young Englishwoman from Cambridge manages to deliver vital notes to a Jewish scientist in Berlin. Not long afterwards she is found dead in her room at home, holding a syringe. Her death is followed by the brutal murder of a well-known county couple. Thomas Wilde, a history professor in Cambridge, is drawn into the murky world of espionage to investigate what could be a scandal involving both the government as well as the King and Mrs. Simpson. Drawing on his speciality on the Elizabethan secret service, Thomas needs skills that he has only read about, to prevent tragedy for his country. Corpus is an ‘absolutely ripping’ tale of spies, murder and mayhem. If you enjoyed the Robert Goddard Wide World trilogy, this is the book for you. It is part one of a series: we cannot wait for Book Two.    BiP staff review by Leonie

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The Long Drop
Denise Mina    $32.99 PB

Denis Mina is yet another of the current group of talented Scottish crime writers. Based on the true story of Peter Manuel, ‘The Beast of Birkenhead’, Denise Mina has delivered a tightly-plotted novel which builds the tension with her matter-of-fact writing style. Set in Glasgow, Denise Mina’s home town, The Long Drop is named after the method of hanging used in state executions in the 1950s. William Watt suspected Peter Manuel of the murders of his wife, daughter and sister-in-law. Watt himself was a suspect at the time. The story shifts between Peter Manuel’s trial and the weird eleven-hour long pub crawl taken by Watt and Manuel after the murders. Denise Mina really evokes the grim Glasgow of the 1950s, using real characters from the city’s low-life to give a sense of menace to this gripping tale.    BiP staff review by Leonie
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BiP eNews cont.. : New Non-Fiction

Only: A Singular Memoir
Caroline Baum     $32.99 PB

Caroline Baum's fascinating and moving memoir about being an only child in a very unusual family. Only is a memoir of an unconventional childhood that explores what it means to be an Only Child - as both child and adult.  Also, what it means to be the daughter of two people damaged by trauma and tragedy, particularly a domineering and explosive father.  Secrets are revealed and differences settled. Caroline Baum's moving and gripping memoir is for everyone who has felt they are the fulcrum of a seesaw, the focus of all eyes and expectations, torn between love and fear, obedience and rebellion, duty and the longing to escape.  It is also for anyone who has felt the burden of trying to be a Good Daughter - what that means and why it is so hard. Revelatory, lyrical and unflinching.

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One Leg Over: Having Fun - Mostly - in Peace and War
Robin Dalton     $29.99 PB

At the age of ninety-five, Robin Dalton looks back on her life, particularly on her love life. Married at nineteen, disastrously, Robin has a lucky escape - her ‘Society Divorce’ makes the front page of Sydney newspapers, bumping the war to page three. Then there are the American and British servicemen in Sydney - the dancing, the many trysts and a number of not-too-serious engagements - before Robin travels to England, ostensibly to marry one of those fiancés. While most of Europe struggles with post-war austerity, Robin’s days and nights are filled with extravagant dinners, parties with royalty and romantic getaways, until she meets the man who will become, for a brief few years before his early death, her second husband. One Leg Over is a story of love and romance, of fun and glamour, and of loss and great sadness. But above all it is a celebration of a wonderful life.

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They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention
Edited by Michael Green and André Dao     $29.99 PB

Revealing, moving and confronting accounts of the reality of life in mandatory detention by those who have experienced it. For more than two decades, Australia has locked up people who arrive here fleeing persecution - sometimes briefly, sometimes for years. In They Cannot Take the Sky those people tell their stories, in their own words. Speaking from inside immigration detention on Manus Island and Nauru, or from within the Australian community after their release, the narrators reveal not only their extraordinary journeys and their daily struggles but also their meditations on love, death, hope and injustice. Their candid testimonies are at times shocking and hilarious, surprising and devastating. They are witnesses from the edge of human experience. The first-person narratives in They Cannot Take the Sky range from epic life stories to heartbreaking vignettes. The narrators who have shared their stories have done so despite the culture of silence surrounding immigration detention, and the real risks faced by those who speak out. Once you have heard their voices, you will never forget them.

BiP eNews

Florette
Anna Walker    $24.99 HB

Anna Walker’s illustrations have a quiet beauty to them, all pencil and watercolour softness to match the subtle moods her well-chosen words paint. Florette is a beautiful picture story about a young girl called Mae whose family have moved to a new home, a flat without a garden, and it is the green spaces of the old place that Mae misses most. Her mum tells Mae that she can make a new garden, but can she? The discovery of a wonderful green paradise in the heart of the city may just be what Mae needs to get things under way! From the cover illustration to the glorious foliaged end papers and the final, happy drawing on the last page, this is a very special book. Ages 4 and up.    BiP staff review by Lucinda

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Busting!
Aaron Blabey    $16.99 HB

From the best-selling author of Pig the Pug and Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas comes another hilarious picture book that will make you laugh out loud. “Lou was busting for the loo. But yikes! The loo had quite a queue. What on earth was Lou to do?” Try as he might, Lou just cannot convince the others in the queue of the urgency of his problem! Very funny stuff from one of the best picture book makers, and fans will not be disappointed. Ages 3 and up.    BiP staff review by Lucinda

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Bruno: Some of the More Interesting Days in My Life So Far
Catharina Valckx and Nicolas Hubesch     $19.99 PB

Bruno, the cat in the checkered cap, takes life as it comes. When it is too rainy to go outside, he rustles up an inside picnic with his friends. When he meets a fish swimming in the air, he follows it. Why not! When the canary forgets how to sing, Bruno helps out. Days come and go, and for Bruno they always bring something interesting. And once in a while, a day comes along that is just about perfect. These six short stories about Bruno are full of friendship and the little moments that make life good. Perfectly pitched at emerging readers, the full-colour illustrations make this a great little book to encourage independent reading. Ages 7 and up    BiP staff review by Lucinda

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The Cruelty
Scott Bergstrom     $18.99 PB

A ground-breaking YA thriller following a diplomat's daughter from New York to Europe's criminal underworld in search of her kidnapped father, The Cruelty is the first venture from a new YA voice. When Gwendolyn Bloom realizes that her father has been kidnapped, she must take matters into her own hands. She traces him from New York City across the dark underbelly of Europe, taking on a new identity to survive in a world of brutal criminal masterminds. As she slowly leaves behind her schoolgirl self, she realizes that she must learn the terrifying truth about herself. What price will she pay to save her father? Both Karen and Cath loved this utterly compelling thriller. Ages 15 and up.    BiP staff review by Lucinda

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Bone Gap
Laura Ruby     $19.99 PB

Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps - gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza goes missing, the people of Bone Gap aren't surprised. After all, it is not the first time someone has slipped away and left Finn and Sean O'Sullivan on their own. But Finn knows that is not what happened with Roza. He knows she was taken, ripped from the cornfields by a man whose face he cannot remember. Sadly, no one believes him anymore. Well, almost no one. Petey Willis, the beekeeper's daughter, suspects that lurking behind Finn's fearful shyness is a story worth uncovering. But as we, like Petey, follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap - their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, their uncertain futures - the truth about what happened to Roza is slowly revealed. And it is stranger than you can possibly imagine.

I adored this novel. With all of my heart. Everything in it sparkles; story, character and place are woven together with beautiful words in a way that is unique and refreshing. Highly recommended for readers of 15 and beyond. Ages 15 and up.    BiP staff review by Lucinda

BiP eNews cont... :

Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly: A Sean Duffy thriller
Adrian McKinty    $29.99 PB

The marvellous Adrian McKinty returns with the sixth book in the Sean Duffy series. The Northern Ireland of the 1980’s comes to life on each page, giving context to the lives led by its police force and its citizens. Sean Duffy, a police detective with the RUC, is saved from a religious pilgrimage with his father by a call to return to work after a man is killed outside his home, shot in the back with an arrow. In a town where bullets rule, this was a crime unusual enough for Sean to cut short his leave. This decision will put his family and colleagues in danger and see him kidnapped at gunpoint and taken into the woods to dig his own grave. Sean and his teammates Sergeant McCrabben and Constable Lawson begin an investigation into the background of the victim and his Bulgarian wife, suspecting that they are low-level drug dealers. This was not a typical IRA hit, which has the murder team more than puzzled. With his loyal associates backing him up Sean Duffy is also fighting for his career, as he is not well liked by his bosses. Each chapter heading gives a clue to the wry Irish humour which Adrian McKinty infuses into his books to lighten the grim events portrayed. He draws you in instantly with his very believable characters and intricate plots. This will undoubtedly be one of the best crime novels of the year.     BiP staff review by Leonie

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The Unmourned: The Monsarrat Series Book Two
Meg and Tom Keneally    $32.99 PB

Hugh Monsarrat and his housekeeper Hannah Mulrooney have earned their tickets of leave from the convict settlement of Port Macquarie and are now living in Parramatta. The colony is in disarray because the former governor has not yet been replaced. Hugh has found a position as a clerk at Government House, working for the governor’s secretary. Robert Church, the superintendent of the female factory, is a vicious young man who preys on the young women in his charge while profiting by using the factory as a marriage market. When Church is brutally murdered the main suspect is an inmate, Grace O’Leary, who has had many run-ins with the superintendent while trying to protect her fellow-inmates. Because of the success of his investigation in Port Macquarie Monsarrat is given leave to use his skills in the murder inquiry. After several difficult interviews with Grace he and Mrs. Mulrooney believe that Grace is innocent. Proving her innocence will be difficult as there is a long list of people who hated Robert Church. Meg and Tom Keneally bring to life the history of nineteenth-century Ireland and the Young Ireland movement. Their wonderful use of language gives each page a fascinating, violent and exciting tale. I cannot wait for Book Three.    BiP staff review by Leonie

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Spook Street
Mick Herron     $32.99 PB

Never outlive your ability to survive a fight. Twenty years retired, David Cartwright can still spot when the stoats are on his trail. Radioactive secrets and unfinished business go with the territory on Spook Street: he has always known there would be an accounting. And he's not as defenceless as they might think. Jackson Lamb worked with Cartwright back in the day. He knows better than most that this is no vulnerable old man. ‘Nasty old spook with blood on his hands’ would be a more accurate description. ‘The old bastard’ has raised his grandson with a head full of guts and glory. But far from joining the myths and legends of Spook Street, River Cartwright is consigned to Lamb's team of pen-pushing no-hopers at Slough House. So it is Lamb they call to identify the body when Cartwright's panic button raises the alarm at Service HQ. And Lamb who will do whatever he thinks necessary, to protect an agent in peril... Recommended by Deborah.

2017 Stella Prize longlist

Save the date! National Simultaneous Storytime

This year NSS takes place on Wednesday 24 May at 11am (AEST) and we would love it if you could join us by sharing The Cow Tripped Over the Moon written by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Laura Wood.

Register to participate - it's free and we have some great activities and resources available to support your National Simultaneous Storytime event.

Everyone can join NSS - it doesn't matter whether you are a home school, a public library or even a university library! Invite a local school group into your workplace for an NSS morning tea, have some fun with your staff at an NSS morning tea or donate a copy of the book to your local library or childcare centre. There are endless ways to support NSS.

National Simultaneous Storytime is held annually by the Australian Library and Information Association. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, bookshops and many other places around the country.

By facilitating National Simultaneous Storytime, we aim to:

·         promote the value of reading and literacy;

·         promote the value and fun of books;

·         promote an Australian writer and publisher;

·         promote storytime activities in public libraries and communities around the country;

·         provide opportunities to involve parents, grandparents, the media and others to participate in and enjoy the occasion.

NSS receives positive media coverage, generates a great deal of community interest and is held annually as part of Library and Information Week.

BiP eNews

4 3 2 1
Paul Auster     $32.99 PB

On March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four Fergusons made of the same genetic material, four boys who are the same boy, will go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Loves and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Chapter by chapter, the rotating narratives evolve into an elaborate dance of inner worlds enfolded within the outer forces of history as, one by one, the intimate plot of each Ferguson's story rushes on across the tumultuous and fractured terrain of mid twentieth-century America. A boy grows up-again and again and again. As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, 4 3 2 1 is an unforgettable tour de force, the crowning work of this masterful writer's extraordinary career.

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Three Daughters of Eve
Elif Shafak      $32.99 PB

Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980's to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past - and a love Peri had tried desperately to forget. The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University, as a nineteen-year-old sent abroad for the first time. To her dazzling, rebellious Professor and his life-changing course on God. To the house she shares with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about identity, Islam and feminism. And finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.

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City of Friends
Joanna Trollope      $29.99 PB

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings, but instead, long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby. The girls, now women, had been best friends from the early days of university right through their working lives, and for all the happiness and heartbreaks in between. But these career women all have personal problems of their own, and when Stacey's redundancy forces a betrayal to emerge that was supposed to remain secret, their long cherished friendships will be pushed to their limits...

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Pachinko
Min Jin Lee      $32.99 PB

Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story. Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.

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The Golden Legend
Nadeem Aslam     $29.99 PB

When shots ring out on the Grand Trunk Road, Nargis's life begins to crumble around her. Her husband, Massud - a fellow architect - is caught in the crossfire and dies before she can confess to him her greatest secret. Under threat from a powerful military intelligence officer, who demands that she pardon her husband's American killer, Nargis fears that the truth about her past will soon be exposed. For weeks someone has been broadcasting people's secrets from the minarets of the city's mosques and, in a country where the accusation of blasphemy is a currency to be bartered, the mysterious broadcasts have struck fear in Christians and Muslims alike. Against this background of violence and fear, two outsiders - the young Christian woman Helen and the mysterious Imran from Kashmir - try to find an island of calm in which their love can grow. Nadeem Aslam reflects Pakistan's past and present in a single mirror - a story of corruption, resilience, and the hope that only love and the human spirit can offer.                Recommended by Deborah

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Fear
Dirk Kurbjuweit     $29.99 PB

‘I had always believed my father capable of a massacre. Whenever I heard on the news that there had been a killing spree, I would hold my breath, unable to relax until it was clear that it couldn’t have been him. That’s paranoid, I know, but it’s inevitable if you grew up the way I did.’

Randolph insists he had a normal childhood, though his father kept thirty loaded guns in the house. Now he has an attractive, intelligent wife and two children, enjoys modest success as an architect and has just moved into a beautiful flat in a respectable part of Berlin. Life seems perfect—until his wife, Rebecca, meets the man living in the basement below. Their downstairs neighbour is friendly at first, but soon he starts to frighten them—and when Randolph fails to act, the situation quickly spins out of control.

BiP Summer Reading Guide

2016 Man Booker Prize WINNER

The Sellout by Paul Beatty   $26.99 PB

A biting American satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court. Born in the 'agrarian ghetto' of Dickens - on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles - the narrator of The Sellout is raised by his single father, a controversial sociologist, and spends his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. Led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes, he is shocked to discover, after his father is killed in a police shoot-out, that there never was a memoir. In fact, all that's left is the bill for a drive-through funeral. Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: his hometown Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident - Hominy Jenkins - he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school. What follows is a remarkable journey that challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement and the holy grail of racial equality - the black Chinese restaurant.

BiP eNews: Leonie's Holiday Reviews

Leonie has been away on holiday, which means that she has been very busy reading. Here are some of the books she read:

A Great Reckoning: A Chief Inspector Gamache Thriller
Louise Penny
$32.99pb

Former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has a new job as Commander of the Quebec Sûreté Academy. He has been asked to bring a total change to the culture of corruption and brutality which has pervaded the force for several years. Before starting in his new position he has taken time off, at home in Three Pines, to review the dossiers of the aspiring candidates for the next intake at the Academy. Only Amelia Choquet appears to be a rebel, with her piercings and attitude to the world. Her name seems familiar to Gamache, but he cannot think why. She was accepted into the Academy on a scholarship, but she feels as if she might be thrown out any day because of her seemingly do-not-care attitude. One of her first lectures is taken by the Commander himself and Amelia, along with the other cadets, does not quite know what to make of the man. Meanwhile Reine Marie Gamache is keeping busy by going through historical documents relating to Three Pines. She discovers a strange old map of what seems to be Three Pines, which has everyone intrigued and keen to know more about it. Soon someone will be dead and everyone at the Academy will be a suspect. To help keep four cadets safe the Commander assigns them to investigate the history and meaning of the map, billeting them with locals, which the cadets are not happy about. Louise Penny continues to bring her characters to life with effortless skill. The Gamache family and the residents have become old friends to me and the many fans of Three Pines. A Great Reckoning is a strong, intriguing mystery.

The Silence Between Breaths

Cath Staincliffe 

$29.99 PB

Passengers rush to board the 10.35am Manchester to London train. Eight strangers share a carriage. Jeff just makes the train on his way to a job interview; Caroline is meeting an old friend in London, and Meg and her partner Diana, with dog Boss, are heading off on holiday. Nick is with his wife Lisa and their two children, off to a family wedding. Rhona is reluctantly attending a recruitment fair with her colleagues and is worried about being back in time to collect her daughter; Saheel is hoping that he will not have anyone sitting next to him and Holly is sitting next to Jeff, constantly checking her mobile phone. Naz, the young train attendant, is doing his best to keep his area of the train tidy. Only one of these people has any idea that the journey will not end happily. In this timely thriller a group of ordinary people is forced to cope with an event that no-one is prepared for. With her experience in writing for a hit TV drama, Cath Staincliffe constantly builds the tension. You cannot help reading to the end.

Magpie Murders

Anthony Horowitz 

$32.99pb           ** BiP price $27.95

As a bookseller, I get to read a lot of books, most of which I enjoy. Some of them I love and a small number disappoint. Then there is the odd one that unexpectedly makes me laugh. Anthony Horowitz’s new crime novel did just that. Magpie Murders is a book within a book, filled with larger than life characters in the vein of Hercule Poirot or Agatha Raisin. Sue Ryland is an editor for a small independent publisher. One of her authors is Alan Conway, a very successful writer of a series of crime novels featuring private detective Atticus Pünd. Conway is a difficult client who declares that the new manuscript, 'Magpie Murders', the ninth book in the series, will be the last. He also provides a draft of the book he feels he was meant to write, which his publisher Charles had no intention of publishing. Sue has barely finished reading Magpie Murders, which is missing its final chapter, when she learns that Alan Conway has fallen to his death. When the police quickly close their investigation, finding that Conway’s death was suicide, she decides to become detective instead of writer. Anthony Horowitz must have had so much fun writing this novel. Interspersed with the narrative there are in-jokes which should appeal to crime lovers; he even makes a few comments about his own work. It was a pleasure to read Magpie Murders and to have some fun with it as well.

The Wonder

Emma Donoghue 

$29.99 PB

Emma Donoghue’s previous book was Room, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and made into a very successful film. The central character of her new novel is a child in danger. The Wonder is set in a village in the Irish midlands in the 1850s. The whole area was decimated during the potato famine. The locals are superstitious with no liking of newcomers, especially the English. They start to believe that Anna O’Donnell, the eleven-year-old daughter of a local farming family, is a living saint. Anna is reputed to have not eaten for four months, but she is still alive and well. After an article about her is published in a Dublin newspaper crowds of visitors try to gain her blessing. A town committee hires nurse Lib Wright and Sister Michael, a nursing nun, to undertake a two-week observation of Anna and her family, to ensure that no fraud is being committed. Lib is extremely sceptical of the child; from the start she suspects Anna and her mother of a hoax. The nurses stay with Anna twenty-four hours a day, with no physical contact allowed with anyone else. Lib tries to get Anna to explain the reasons for her actions. When Anna’s condition begins to deteriorate Lib fears for the girl’s life, but the town committee refuses to act. This is a powerful story of religion, superstition and family secrets by a talented writer.

September New Releases | Fiction

Nutshell

Ian McEwan     $32.99 HB     **BiP Price $27.99

Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a unique voice in contemporary literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master. Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She is still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but not with John. Instead, she is with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb. Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

Minds of Winter

Ed O’Loughlin      $32.99 PB

In the new novel from the Booker long-listed author Ed O'Loughlin, a meeting between two strangers sheds light on the greatest unsolved mystery of polar exploration. Minds of Winter begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world. Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada - 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle - searching for answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, Fay for her disappeared grandfather. They soon learn that these two men have an unexpected link - a hidden share in an enduring polar mystery. In a feat of extraordinary scope and ambition, Ed O'Loughlin moves between a frozen present and an-ever thawing past, and from the minds of two present-day wanderers to the lives some of polar history's most enigmatic figures. Minds of Winter is a novel about ice and time and their ability to preserve or destroy, of mortality and loss and our dreams of transcending them.

Nothing Short of Dying

Erik Storey     $29.99 PB

Clyde Barr has been on the run for sixteen years. Now he’s back in the Colorado wilderness, hoping for some peace and quiet. Then Clyde receives a frantic phone call for help from his sister Jen. But the line goes dead. She’s been taken. 

Clyde doesn’t know where Jen is. He doesn’t know who has her. He doesn’t know how much time he has. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her…

The Rules of Backyard Cricket

Jock Serong     $29.99 PB

Jock Serong’s novel begins in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game. Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. No surprise that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety—one of those men who always gets away with things. Until the day we meet him, middle-aged, in the boot of a car. Gagged, cable-tied, a bullet in his knee. Everything pointing towards a shallow grave. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a novel of suspense in the tradition of Peter Temple’s Truth. With glorious writing harnessed to a gripping narrative, it observes celebrity, masculinity—humanity—with clear-eyed lyricism and exhilarating narrative drive.          Recommended by Deborah.

September New Releases | Non-Fiction

Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill

Stephen Dando-Collins     $34.99 PB

The Dam Busters, The Great Escape and Reach for the Sky were all written by Paul Brickhill, an Australian hero of WWII. 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth and the 25th anniversary of his death. In 1956 Brickhill, the writer from Sydney’s lower North Shore, had every reason to feel blessed. He was the highest-earning author in the UK and two of his bestselling books – The Dam Busters and Reach for the Sky – had recently been made into blockbuster films. Another of his books – inspired by his experiences as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 3 in Germany during the Second World War – was attracting interest from  Hollywood. That book was The Great Escape. Yet, life for the enigmatic Brickhill was never simple. He was beset with mental-health issues and his marriage to model Margot Slater was tempestuous. He struggled with alcohol and writer’s block too, as his success – and all that accompanied it – threatened to overwhelm him. In The Hero Maker, award-winning historical author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins exposes the contradictions of one of Australia’s most successful, but troubled, writers. Brickhill’s extraordinary story – from the youth with a debilitating stutter to Sydney Sun journalist to Spitfire pilot and POW to feted author – explodes vividly to life on the centenary of his birth.

Fifteen Young Men: Australia’s Untold Football Tragedy

Paul Kennedy     $34.99 PB

Fifteen Young Men is the true story of a doomed adventure. Few people know an Australian football team drowned in 1892. Yet the boat disaster still ranks alongside the Manchester United plane crash (1958) as one of the world’s greatest sporting tragedies. Lost were fifteen men and boys from one town - brothers, fathers, sons, uncles and best mates – ‘youths that might have made the best colonists Australia ever had.’ Only one or two members of the team were spared: the captain, who at the jetty had a strange sense of impending danger, and gave away his ticket before the voyage, and one other. For the first time in 122 years, journalist Paul Kennedy reveals why the Mornington Football Club never made it home. In doing so, he brings to life nineteenth-century Australia during the depression and its first banking crisis, a period of trauma, resilience, friendship, love and grief for a generation of settlers’ children.

Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot That Changed Cricket

Gideon Haigh 

Sept 2016 | $39.99 HB

Victor Trumper (1877-1915) was our first internationally recognised cricketing genius, acclaimed by the legendary W.G Grace and others, who died at 36 in 1915. He has entered Australian sporting folklore and is still one of the great names in sport, with a stand named after him at the SCG. Trumper is a figure that has long held intrigue for Australia's favourite cricket writer, Gideon Haigh. In Stroke of Genius he takes the phenomenon and specific focus of Trumper and particularly a famous, ground-breaking photograph of him by Englishman George Beldham to ask a much larger set of questions. Haigh argues Trumper changed the way cricket was perceived and played in a way that reflects on Australia's relationship with England, the start of the 20th century (photography, marketing, professionalism) and eternal themes of sport and beauty. He explores the relationship between Trumper, the photograph, the game, the country and its people.

Ghost Empire

Richard Fidler     $39.99 HB       **BiP Price $34.95

In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople – sweeps the reader into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son. Ghost Empire is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home.

The History of Australia in 100 Objects

Toby Creswell      $49.99 HB

From Captain Cook's globe to Mabo's map, and Melba's frock to Cathy Freeman's running suit, this is Australia's history told through a gallery of things. Former Rolling Stone editor Toby Creswell has curated an illustrated popular history of Australia accumulated through the review of 100 fascinating man-made objects. Creswell takes each object as the starting point to explore the stories that make up our national history, exploring and celebrating key technological, social, political and sporting moments. From Ned Kelly's armour to Henry Lawson's pen and Julia Gillard's glasses, the chosen objects are sometimes iconic, sometimes unexpected and quirky; but the mix creates a compelling story. Each entry is accompanied by a striking image of the object. A book that can be read from cover to cover, or dipped into at any point, The History of Australia in 100 Objects is a fresh, popular take on Australia's history. 

The Australian National Dictionary

edited by Bruce Moore      $175.00 Two volume slipcase

The Australian National Dictionary is the ultimate dictionary of Australianisms. It includes words and meanings that have originated in Australia, and words that have a greater currency here than elsewhere or that have a special significance in Australian history. Like the comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary, it differs from general dictionaries in being based on historical principles. This means it describes the full history of a word, starting with its earliest appearance, establishing its origin, and documenting its use over time. 

There are 6000 new entries and more than 16,000 Australian terms. This two volume set includes colloquial terms, rhyming slang and numerous lively and colourful idioms, and regional terms from different states and territories and terms from Aboriginal English. The Australian National Dictionary is the only comprehensive, historically-based record of the words and meanings that make up Australian English. It is a unique lexical map of Australian history and culture.