CATEGORIES

Have you ever wandered down your street and wondered who shares it with you? Do you like to let your curiosity conjure up interesting occupants based entirely on the external appearance of a dwelling? I do. I’m not sure if young children do this as consciously as us more questioning grown up types but Katrina [...]

Once upon a time, not long ago, unearthing quality crafted, self-published children’s books was like fossicking for gold. They were out there, but often buried under layers of fools’ gold. Grandpa’s Gold is one of the genuine gems. For me, one of the greatest rewards of being a parent is being able to share the [...]

I’m not big on wind. Of all the meteorological marvels on offer, it’s the least appealing to me, perhaps because I endured a few too many tropical cyclones and missing roofs as a child. So when The Windy Farm blew onto my shelves, I instinctively hunched my shoulders and wondered what on earth could be [...]

Today we delve deeper into the dynamic world of industrious children’s author, Janeen Brian. She’s releasing more books per month than I’ve had pie floaters  and I hear that one of her poems, “What did you learn at school today?” is being published in The School Magazine’s Blast Off this month. Does this lady never slow [...]

I have never felt so exposed by a picture book as I did when I first laid eyes on Meet…Ned Kelly. The piercing stare of Australia’s most infamous bush ranger peering from the slit of his armoured headgear sliced through to the very marrow of my bones, anchoring the outlaw’s stare there as if to say, [...]

I was never the highest jumper or the fastest sprinter at school, and standing in the middle of a netball court surrounded by a pack of short-nailed, indomitable girls with only a thin bib between them and my trembling heart filled me with terror. No, sport and I don’t really gel well. I lacked that [...]

Lesley Jørgensen didn’t start writing with big ambitions, much less with the goal of picking up the CAL Scribe Fiction prize. Her entry, Cat & Fiddle, began life as the first piece that she had to write for her RMIT Novel 1 workshop. It grew into a humourous and touching multilayered portrayal of contemporary life, [...]

From the author of the acclaimed Grassdogs comes a breathtaking story set in the Blue Mountains during the late 1800s When I was a babe in rags my father had three wives … Half-brothers Byron and Clancy Wilson are inseparable during their childhood. They run wild in the dark valleys of the Blue Mountains, run riot during [...]

 A stunning Australian novel based on the true story of the first woman to set foot on Antarctica It’s the early 1930s. Antarctic open-sea whaling is booming and a territorial race for the mysterious continent between Norwegian and British–Australian interests is in full swing. This was the era when Antarctica was closed to women, in [...]

This is a remarkable true story about how America’s best pianist was immortalised by an Australian lipstick salesman. A Lasting Record is a haunting story about two men who never met but whose paths crossed in a surprising way. With a mix of detective work and imagination, Stephen Downes tells the spellbinding tale of the greatest pianist [...]

What’s Your Dog Teaching You? by Martin McKenna The follow-up to the bestselling What’s Your Dog Telling You? Martin McKenna, aka the Dog Man, has learned plenty from the dogs he grew up with and from the dogs he now owns. He firmly believes that dogs hold the key to human happiness and wellbeing and that they can help us [...]

The feel-good novel of 2013, The Rosie Project is a classic screwball romance. Rights sold into more than thirty countries. Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn’t know who to yet. But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not [...]

Random House Australia has acquired the rights to an ebook and print book version of Dandelion, a popular anti-bullying app for children that was created by Sydney writer and creative director Galvin Scott Davis. Random House will publish the Dandelion ebook on 15 March, followed by a hardcover picture book on 1 April. Davis created the Dandelion app in 2012 in [...]

Random Romance is the new Random House Australia digital-first romance list and is launching next month – just in time for Valentine’s Day – with five indulgent titles, including two romcoms, two erotic novellas and a scintillating outback romance. Another five titles will be published throughout the year.   One Little White Lie by Loretta HillThis [...]

THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT The action-packed true story of Australia’s own top gun pilot Matt Hall Growing up in Newcastle, NSW, Matt Hall didn’t give much thought to his future. All he knew was when his Dad would take him flying, the world suddenly made sense to him. The stories he loved best [...]

Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has penned a new thriller, Inferno, which will publish globally on May 14. In his eagerly awaited follow-up to The Lost Symbol renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon returns. Set in the heart of Europe Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centred on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces. From [...]

Penguin Books has announced that it will publish a limited edition set of 12 of its ‘Popular Penguins’ books with pink covers in March to help raise money for the McGrath Foundation. $1 from the sale of each of the ‘Pink Popular Penguins’ will be donated to the McGrath Foundation, which aims to increase breast health [...]

2013 has started and I’ve decided to make a resolution I can actually keep for a change, instead of committing to learn Arabic by audiobook over my headphones as I run an ultra-marathon in record time. This year I’ve made it easy on myself and resolved to do a lot more learning in my spare [...]

Blending the epic storytelling tradition of Bryce Courtney with the meticulous accuracy of Philippa Gregory … award-winning historian and bestselling novelist, Deborah Challinor delivers a convict story like no other – four feisty females bound for Botany Bay. Behind the Sun turns the convict story on its head. Through the eyes of four fiercely feisty young [...]

Who better to introduce modern tweens to the minefields that are love and romance than Jane Austen’s little sister, Jenna Austen? From an award-winning Australian children’s author writing under the pseudonym ‘Jenna Austen’ comes the perfect series for girls aged 9+ who have moved on from Harry Potter but aren’t quite ready for Twilight yet. Parents will love the fact [...]

‘I love the way Freddy loves Rugby League. Look we all know that he sees the world a little differently and when it comes to talking footy that’s a good thing!’ Andrew Johns  Following on from the success of The Fittler Files comes The Fittler Files 2, a review of the 2012 rugby league season from round one through to [...]

It’s all about fishing in the Top End … sort of. Come on a fishing trip with ABC Darwin’s Rob Smith, Tim Moore and Mario ‘McFadge’ Faggion as they chart the croc-filled waters of the Top End, doing what they do best — telling tall tales, drinking beer, and crapping on. As one keen fan [...]

Australia’s queen of fantasy returns to the world of her epic bestseller Myrren’s Gift. Fiona McIntosh is one of Australia’s most exciting and prolific authors of popular fantasy. Locally, reviewers have compared her to masters of the genre, including Raymond Feist, Jean M Auel, David Gemmell and Guy Gavriel Kay; internationally, she is also a [...]

BLANCHE d’ALPUGET’s first novel in twenty years will be published in September 2013. The Young Lion is the gripping first installment in a trilogy set in the Middle Ages, and marks the return to the world of fiction of one of Australia’s finest writers. Blanche’s earlier novels were all bestsellers. They include Turtle Beach, which won the Age Book of [...]

‘People kept remarking on how they were surprised that a gold medal and fame hadn’t changed me. I always responded, “Why would I change? Being me is the easiest person to be.” I was lying. It wasn’t.’ At the Beijing Olympic Games, Matthew Mitcham made history with an unforgettable dive, scoring perfect tens, and winning gold [...]

A funny and tender love story from a talented new Australian writer – Sex, lies & bonsai by Lisa Walker What if you live in the midst of the intense surfing culture of the NSW North coast with a father who is a legendary surfing champion but you are too scared to even go in the [...]

KYLIE CHAN SMALL SHEN SMALL SHEN is the amazing story of Gold — a stone spirit and a chronic troublemaker in the court of the great Gods of Chinese mythology. A mix of Kylie Chan’s brilliant storytelling and Queenie Chan’s beautiful illustrations, SMALL SHEN is a fantastic treat for fans of WHITE TIGER. Readers will be thrilled to discover the [...]

Move over Clarice Bean and Ramona Quimby… there’s a new girl on the scene! Melbournian Jen Storer is one of the loudest and most influential new voices in modern Australian children’s fiction. In 2011, her novel Tensy Farlow and the Home for Mislaid Children– the story of plucky, flame-haired orphan Tensy – was shortlisted for a [...]

The new – and final – novel, Jack of Diamonds, by Australia’s favourite storyteller, Bryce Courtenay, is now available. You can buy it here… Celebrating the golden age of jazz, Jack of Diamonds is a true Bryce Courtenay classic spanning three continents and starring the irrepressible, quick-witted and big-hearted Jack Spayd. Inspired by Bryce’s love of jazz and [...]

‘I’m writing these pieces for that ultimate accolade: the fridge door.’ Honestly: Notes on Life by Nikki Gemmell  This book celebrates a year of thought-provoking columns in THE AUSTRALIAN WEEKEND MAGAZINE from the bestselling author of The Bride of Stripped Bare and With My Body. ‘… I feel my work’s marked by bewilderment, vulnerability, as much as anything. [...]

‘One misses the faces of the fine fellows you knew in the days of the storm, the faces of those good comrades who stuck through the smoke and racket and dust of war and in those glamorous days of leave, and the faces of those who have gone…’  Hell’s Bells and Mademoiselles by Lieutenant Joe [...]

A young, free-range chicken… A dominating, ravenous chef… Fifty recipes to make every dinner a turn-on… Fifty Shades of Chicken is a cookbook serving up epicurean double entendres and 50 excellent chicken recipes all while telling the story of a young free-range and very fresh chicken who, like Anastasia Steele, finds herself at the mercy [...]

For more than 20 years Bruce Whatley has been bringing to life some of the cutest, craziest, sweetest and ugliest characters in children’s books. His credits include Little White Dogs Can’t Jumpand Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chasewritten with his wife Rosie Smith who continues to be a large part of his work, The Little Refugee, Zoobots, [...]

The most enchanting picture book you’ll pick up this year, from QLD artist & debut author Kate Knapp Meet Ruby Red Shoes. Ruby is a small white hare who lives in a cosy little caravan with her kindly grandmother, Babushka Galina Galushka (which literally translates as ‘Grandmother Calm Dumpling’ in Babushka’s native Russian). Ruby is [...]

‘What happens on tour sometimes needs to be told…’ As a cricket writer for over ten years, Andrew Ramsey’s job was to be on tour with the world’s greatest cricket team, in a decade when it had no peer. His book chronicles the privileges and pitfalls of a life spent trotting the globe, hanging out [...]

The low-down on “Vile Kyle” has proved to be good reading material, reports News.com.au.  His new biography, with its wonderfully pun-y title of Scandalands, has apparently hit the top of the non-fiction bestsellers’ list after just a week on the shelves. Written by his former producer Bruno Bouchet, the book reportedly covers “everything from his [...]

Tales from his 21 years at Radio National’s Late Night Live where anything could happen and almost everything has …  For 21 years Phillip Adams has expertly batted questions to world leaders, thinkers, ideologues, crackpots and gurus and collected irreplaceable wisdom and stories along the way. In singular style he has interviewed thousands of people, many of [...]

The book that inspired the forthcoming ABC1 drama series DEVIL’S DUST  … Matt Peacock first warned the public about the dangers of James Hardie’s asbestos empire in an award-winning radio series in 1977. He has followed the tragic trail since then and in 2009 published Killer Company, the inside story of how Matt and asbestos campaigner, Bernie [...]

‘‘I was an arrogant, foolish young man with talent, celebrity and opportunity but without a shred of respect for my blessings. The problem of course is that cocaine is the perfect enabling experience for just this kind of dickheadedness.’’ In the world of pro-surfing, personalities don’t come any bigger than Gary ‘Kong’ Elkerton. Raised on [...]

You won’t find fancy restaurant-style dishes in here – it’s all about recipes that reflect the sort of food I look to cook at home, whether it’s a midweek meal for the family or something more impressive for the weekend when entertaining friends.  Valli Little Welcome to the kitchen of one of Australia’s leading food writers. [...]