Titles you can borrow in our book group kits

Book group kits are now available to borrow and we've chosen some exciting titles that will get your book group talking!

Each kit has 10 regular print copies.

To reserve a kit, please email our Adult Services Librarian, Kew Library, at [email protected]. You can also schedule a number of kits ahead of time with your preferred collection dates.

For more information on book group kits and to discover more book group events and resources, visit our Book groups page.

Book Group Kit booklist

The following titles can be borrowed as part of the Book Group Kit initiative. Explore fiction or non-fiction titles.

Fiction

Leave the world behind by Rumaan Alam

Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a holiday: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City. But, with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city and they have come to the country in search of shelter. But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple – and vice versa? 

Limberlost by Robbie Arnott

Ned West dreams of sailing across the river on a boat of his very own. To Ned, a boat means freedom, a far cry from life on Limberlost, the family farm, where his father worries and grieves for Ned's older brothers. They're away fighting in a ruthless and distant war, becoming men on the battlefield, while Ned – too young to enlist – roams the land. But as the seasons pass and Ned grows up, real life gets in the way. 

The birdman’s wife by Melissa Ashley

Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The birdman's wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man. 

The naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Ashley

At the turn of the 18th century, Amsterdam is at the centre of an intellectual revolution, with artists and scientists racing to record the wonders of the natural world. Of all the brilliant naturalists in Europe, Maria Sibylla Merian is one of its brightest stars. For as long as she can remember, Dorothea Graff's life has been lived in service to her mother, Maria: from collecting insects to colouring illustrations for Maria's world-famous publications. While Dorothea longs for a life that is truly her own, she constantly finds herself drawn back into her mother's world – and shadow. 

The heart goes last by Margaret Atwood

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple in the midst of economic and social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine's job at a dive bar, they're vulnerable to roving gangs, and in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project, a 'social experiment' offering stable jobs and a home, they sign up immediately.

Cold enough for snow by Jessica Au

A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother's family in Hong Kong, and the daughter's own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? 

The personal librarian by Marie Benedict

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true. Belle is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, booksand artwork for his newly built Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, as she helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. 

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain – Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hardworking obscurity.

After story by Larissa Behrendt

When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt when another child mysteriously goes missing. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols, Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling.

The white girl by Tony Birch

Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children. When a new police officer arrives in town, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves.

The anniversary by Stephanie Bishop

Novelist J.B. Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband Patrick, celebrating their wedding anniversary. Her former professor, Patrick is much older than J.B. He is a film director. A cult figure. But now his success is starting to wane, and J.B. is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. While her art has been forever overseen by him, now it may overshadow his. For days they sail in the sun, then a storm hits and Patrick falls off the ship. J.B. is left alone as the search for what happened to Patrick and the truth about their marriage begins.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a firefighter. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran

Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home. As those who challenge the residents' existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided. 

Gulliver's wife by Lauren Chater

London, 1702. When her husband is lost at sea, Mary Burton Gulliver, midwife and herbalist, is forced to rebuild her life without him. But three years later when Lemuel Gulliver is brought home, fevered and communicating only in riddles, her ordered world is turned upside down. Mary is caught in a crossfire of suspicion and fear driven by her husband's outlandish claims, and it is up to her to navigate a passage to safety for herself and her daughter, and the vulnerable women in her care. When a fellow sailor, appears to hold sway over her husband, Mary's world descends deeper into chaos, and she must set out on her own journey to discover the truth of Gulliver's travels. 

Paper palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Before anyone else is awake, on a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the glorious freshwater pond below 'The Paper Palace' – the gently decaying summer camp in the back woods of Cape Cod. As she passes the house, Elle glances through the screen porch at the uncleared table from a dinner party the previous evening. Then she dives beneath the surface of the freezing water to the shocking memory of the sudden passionate encounter she had the night before, as her husband and mother chatted to the dinner guests inside. 

American dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Yesterday, Lydia Quixano Perez had a bookshop in the Mexican city of Acapulco. Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist. Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world. Now, her 8-year-old son Luca is all she has left. For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg. For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train. For him, she will find the strength to keep running.

All our shimmering skies by Trent Dalton

Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain overhead, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns to the sky for guidance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. 'Run, Molly, run,' says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the grave robber is coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him.

The last thing he told me by Laura Dave

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her. Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect – his 16-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As her increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen's true identity, and why he disappeared. 

The life to come by Michelle De Kretser

Set in Sydney, Paris and Sri Lanka. Pippa is a writer who longs for success. Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time.

The librarianist by Patrick deWitt 

Bob Comet is a retired librarian living out his quiet days in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob as the events of his life are revealed. Behind Bob Comet's plain facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure, of true love found and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in vocationand the ultimate acceptance of a life lived to the side of the masses.

Life after truth by Ceridwen Dovey

Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, 5 close friends are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they've wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life. Eloise, now a professor who studies the psychology of happiness, is troubled by her younger wife's radical politics. And Jomo, founder of a luxury jewellery company, has been carrying an engagement ring around for months.

The covered wife by Lisa Emanuel

Sarah is a smart, young lawyer working endless hours when she falls head over heels for Daniel. When Daniel introduces her to Rabbi Menachem Lev and his wife, Chani, despite herself, Sarah is drawn in by their progressive beachside synagogue and the song, feasting and friendship that come with it. By the time they move to the Jamison Valley with the other believers, Sarah can't imagine life without the joy, meaning and love they've discovered. Four years on, youthful fervour has given way to something darker. As the community celebrates the wedding of a beautiful young convert and a much older divorcee, a series of terrifying truths emerges that tear Sarah's world apart, and cause her to question everything her faith, her marriage and her future.

Girl, woman, other by Bernardine Evaristo

Welcome to Newcastle, 1905. Ten-year-old Grace is an orphan dreaming of the mysterious African father she will never meet. Cornwall, 1953. Winsome is a young bride, recently arrived from Barbados, realising the man she married might be a fool. London, 1980. Amma is the fierce queen of her squatters' palace, ready to Smash The Patriarchy. Oxford, 2008. Carole is rejecting her cultural background to blend in at her posh university. Northumberland, 2017. Morgan, who used to be Megan, is visiting Hattie who's in her nineties and who still misses Slim every day. Welcome to Britain and 12 very different people. 

Lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. But it's the 1960s and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen to her on the road to professional fulfilment is a run-in with her super-star colleague Calvin Evans. Calvin is already a legend and a Nobel nominee. Theirs is true chemistry. But as events are never as predictable as chemical reactions, 3 years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother and the star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. 

The woman in the library by Sulari Gentill

The tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, 4 strangers pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning – it just happens that one is a murderer.

A room made of leaves by Kate Grenville

What if Elizabeth Macarthur had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follows is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented. Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life – marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart, the search for power in a society that gave her none. Her "memoir" reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past – devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times – the seductive appeal of false stories. 

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Dolly Maunder was born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society's long-locked doors were finally starting to creak ajar for women. Born into a poor farming family in country New South Wales, she spent her restless life pushing at those doors. Most women like Dolly have more or less disappeared from view, remembered only in a family photo album as a remote figure in impossible clothes, and maybe for a lemon-pudding recipe. Restless Dolly Maunder brings one of them to life as a person we can recognise and whose struggles we can empathise with. 

Good eggs by Rebecca Hardiman

Meet the Gogartys; cantankerous gran Millie; bitter downtrodden son Kevin; and habitually moody, disaffected teenage daughter Aideen. When Gran's arrested yet again for shoplifting, Aideen's rebelliousness has reached new heights and Kevin's still not found work, he realises he needs to take action. With the appointment of a home carer for his mother, his daughter sent away to boarding school and more time for him to reboot his job-hunt, surely everything will work out just fine. But as the story unfolds, nothing goes according to plan and as the calm starts to descend into chaos we're taken on a hilarious multiple-perspective roller-coaster ride.

Exiles by Jane Harper

At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother vanishing into the crowds. A year on, Kim Gillespie's absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family. Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems. 

Our souls at night by Kent Haruf

Addie Moore's husband died years ago, so did Louis Waters' wife, and, as neighbours in Holt, Colorado they have naturally long been aware of each other. With their children now far away both live alone in houses empty of family. The nights are terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk to. Then one evening Addie pays Louis an unexpected visit. 

The younger wife by Sally Hepworth

Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer's. Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something. The announcement of Stephen and Heather's engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface. 

Evvie Drake starts over by Linda Holmes

One morning, Eveleth 'Evvie' Drake got up, packed her suitcase and got ready to leave her life and her perfect husband behind. But before she walked out of the door, she received a phone call asking her to come to the hospital. That day, Evvie's new life as a widow began. Now wrestling with her guilt and grief, Evvie has found her independence, but not the way she planned. Unable to leave the house she once dreamed of escaping, it's clear to her best friend Andy that Evvie needs a change. And Andy might just have the answer. 

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman

She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same 2 bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she's avoided all her life. 

We were the lucky ones by Georgia Hunter

The Kurc family shouldn't have survived the Holocaust. In the spring of 1939, 3 generations are living relatively normal lives in Poland, despite the hardships Jews face. When war breaks out and the family is cast to the wind, the five Kurc siblings do everything they can to find their way through a devastated continent to freedom.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

The dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison by Meredith Jaffe

Derek's daughter Debbie is getting married. He's desperate to be there, but he's banged up in Yarrandarrah Correctional Centre for embezzling funds from the golf club, and he hasn't spoken to Debbie in years. He wants to make a grand gesture to show her how much he loves her. But what? Inspiration strikes while he's embroidering a cushion at his weekly prison sewing circle – he'll make her a wedding dress. His fellow stitchers rally around and soon this motley gang of crims is immersed in a joyous whirl of silks, satins and covered buttons. But as time runs out and tensions rise both inside and outside the prison, the wedding dress project takes on greater significance.

Dinner with the Schnabels by Toni Jordan

Things haven't gone well for Simon Larsen lately. He adores his wife, Tansy, and his children, but since his business failed and he lost the family home, he can't seem to get off the couch. His larger-than-life in-laws, the Schnabels, won't get off his case. To keep everyone happy, Simon needs to do one little job: he has a week to landscape a friend's backyard for an important Schnabel family event. But as the week progresses, Simon is derailed by the arrival of an unexpected house guest. Then he discovers Tansy is harbouring a secret. 

The seven moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has 7 moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Small things like these by Claire Keegan

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Good neighbours by Sarah Langan

From 3-time Bram Stoker-Award-winning novelist Sarah Langan comes a propulsive literary suburban noir set in near-future America during the hottest summer on record. Maple Street has a neighborly cul-de-sac, where a terrible secret tears a rift between 2 misfit moms who were once best friends. When innocent Shelly Schroeder falls down a sinkhole, its one mother’s word against the others, in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood. 

A town called Solace by Mary Lawson

Clara's sister is missing. Angry, rebellious Rose, had a row with their mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Eight-year-old Clara, isolated by her distraught parents' efforts to protect her from the truth, is grief-stricken and bewildered. Liam Kane, newly divorced, newly unemployed, newly arrived, moves into the house next door, and within hours gets a visit from the police. It seems he's suspected of a crime. At the end of her life Elizabeth Orchard is thinking about a crime too, one committed 30 years ago that had tragic consequences for 2 families and in particular for one small child. She desperately wants to make amends before she dies. 

The heaven and earth grocery store by James McBride

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were 2 of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theatre and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe's theatre and the unofficial leader of the Black community, who worked together to keep the boy safe. 

Let the great world spin by Colum McCann

A rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery and promise of New York City in the 1970s. A radical young Irish monk struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gathers to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam. A young artist is at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. A 38-year-old grandmother turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter. Weaving together these lives, McCann's allegory comes alive in the voices of the city's people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty and the "artistic crime of the century" – a mysterious tightrope walker dancing between the Twin Towers.

The rich man's house by Andrew McGahan

Billionaire Walter Richman has built himself his dream home – the Observatory,  at the foot of the world's highest mountain in the waters south of Tasmania. Living a far humbler life is Rita Gausse, estranged daughter of the architect who designed the Observatory. Rita is surprised, to be invited to the Observatory to meet the famous Richman in person. From the beginning, something doesn't feel right. When cataclysmic circumstances intervene to trap Rita and the others in the Observatory, she slowly begins to learn the unsettling – and ultimately horrifying – answers. 

The children act by Ian McEwan

Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and her marriage of 35 years is in crisis. Now she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful 17-year-old boy, is refusing the medical treatment and his devout parents share his wishes. 

I have some questions for you by Rebecca Makkai

A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past: the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the 1995 murder of a classmate, Thalia Keith. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death and the conviction of the school's athletics coach, Omar Evans, are the subject of intense fascination online, Bodie prefers to let sleeping dogs lie. But when The Granby School invites her back to teach a 2-week course, Bodie finds herself inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? 

Love objects by Emily Maguire

Nic is a 45-year-old trivia buff, amateur nail artist and fairy godmother to the neighbourhood's stray cats. She's also the owner of a decade's worth of daily newspapers, enough clothes and shoes to fill Big W 3 times over and a pen collection. The person she's closest to in the world is her beloved niece Lena, who she meets for lunch every Sunday. One day Nic fails to show up. When Lena travels to her house to see if Nic's all right, she gets the shock of her life, and sets in train a series of events that will prove cataclysmic for them both.

The truth about her by Jaqueline Maley

Journalist and single mother Suzy Hamilton gets a phone call one summer morning and finds out that the subject of one of her investigative exposes, 25-year-old wellness blogger Tracey Doran, has killed herself overnight. Suzy is horrified by this news but copes in the only way she knows how – through work, mothering, and carrying on with her ill-advised, tandem affairs. The consequences of her actions catch up with Suzy over the course of a sticky Sydney summer. She starts receiving anonymous vindictive letters and is pursued by Tracey's mother wanting her, as a kind of rough justice, to tell Tracey's story, but this time, the right way.

A brief affair by Alex Miller

From the bustling streets of China to the ominous Cell 16 in an old asylum building, to the familiar sounds and sight of galahs flying over a Victorian farm, A brief affair is a tender love story. On the face of it, Dr Frances Egan is a woman who has it all until a brief, perfect affair reveals to her an imaginative dimension to her life that is wholly her own. Fran finds the courage and the inspiration to risk everything and change her direction at the age of 42. This newfound understanding of herself is fortified by the discovery of a long-forgotten diary from the asylum and the story it reveals. 

Sixteen trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

Edvard grows up on a remote mountain farmstead in Norway with his taciturn grandfather, Sverre. The death of his parents, when he was 3 years old, has always been shrouded in mystery – he has never been told how or where it took place and has only a distant memory of his mother. One day a coffin is delivered for his grandfather long before his death, and Edvard's desperate quest to unlock the family's tragic secrets takes him on a long journey.

Hello beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Best friends and sisters, the 4 Padvano girls are thought of as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Chicago neighbourhood. From childhood, the 4 sisters complete one another. But when Julia falls in love with William Walters, their lives change. As William falls into darkness, it is Sylvie, not Julie, who steps in to help. Split apart by stubbornness and heartbreak, the Padavano family scatters across the country. Will the love and loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together?

The forgotten letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn

Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting off the Cornish coast where she discovers a collection of hidden love letters. Rachel determines to track down the intended recipient. Meanwhile, in London, Eve is helping her grandmother write her memoirs. When she is contacted by Rachel, it sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to reveal secrets kept buried for more than 60 years.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley Street, Stratford, and has 3 children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged 11. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet. Drawing on her long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Maggie O'Farrell writes Hamnet as a luminous portrait of a marriage and at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

The marriage portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Florence, 1561. Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de' Medici, is free to wander the palazzo at will, wondering at its treasures and observing its clandestine workings. But when her older sister dies on the eve of marriage to Alfonso d'Este, ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage and her father to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood, Lucrezia must now make her way in a troubled court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. 

There was still love* by Favel Parrett

Prague, 1938: Eva flies down the street from her sister. Suddenly a man steps out, a man wearing a hat. Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter. His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything, as war forces so many lives into small, brown suitcases. Prague, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip under the heavy blanket that covers this city. Ludek is free. And he sees everything. The world can go to hell for all he cares because Babi is waiting for him. Melbourne, 1980: Malá Liška's grandma holds her hand as they climb the stairs to their third floor flat. Inside, the smell of warm pipe tobacco and homemade cakes.

The Dutch house by Ann Patchett

Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish folly in small-town Pennsylvania taken on by his property developer father. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, Andrea’s advent to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve’s lives.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

In the spring of 2020, Lara's 3 daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theatre company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. 

The authenticity project by Claire Pooley

One green notebook. Six strangers. The chance to start being honest. Six strangers with one universal thing in common: their lives aren't always what they make them out to be. But what would happen if they told the truth instead? Desperate to confess the deep loneliness he feels, Julian begins The Authenticity Project - a notebook containing the truth about his life – to pass on and encourage others to share their own. Leaving it on a table in Monica's cafe, he never expects Monica to find it and track him down. Or that his small act of honesty will impact all those who come into contact with the book.

One hundred days by Alice Pung

In a heady whirlwind of independence, lust and defiance, 16-year-old Karuna falls pregnant. Not on purpose, but not entirely by accident, either. Incensed, Karuna's mother, confines her to their 14-storey housing-commission flat, to keep her safe from the outside world – and make sure she can't get into any more trouble. Stuck inside for endless hours, Karuna battles her mother and herself for a sense of power in her own life, as a new life forms and grows within her. As the due date draws ever closer, the question of who will get to raise the baby – who it will call Mum – festers between them.

Mrs. Plansky's revenge by Spencer Quinn

Mrs Loretta Plansky is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her children and grandchildren. One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call claiming to be her grandson Will, who desperately needs $10,000. Of course, Loretta obliges. By morning, she has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta's life savings have vanished, and that it's hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim. In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back, and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.

Seeing other people by Diana Reid

After 2 years of lockdowns, there's change in the air. Eleanor has just broken up with her boyfriend, Charlie's career as an actor is starting up again. They're finally ready to pursue their dreams – relationships, career, family – if only they can work out what it is they really want. When principles and desires clash, Eleanor and Charlie are forced to ask: where is the line between self-love and selfishness? In all their confusion, mistakes will be made and lies will be told as they reckon with the limits of their own self-awareness. 

Such a fun age by Kiley Reid

When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for 'kidnapping' the white child she's actually babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix's desire to help. When a surprising connection emerges between the 2 women, it sends them on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know – about themselves, each other, and the messy dynamics of privilege.

The lost flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

After her family suffers a tragedy, 9-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers. Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family's story. In her early twenties, Alice's life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss. Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man.

The Moroccan daughter by Deborah Rodriguez

Amina Bennis has come back to her childhood home in Morocco to attend her sister's wedding. The time has come for her to confront her strict, traditionalist father with the secret she has kept for more than a year – her American husband Max. Amina's best friend Charlie, and Charlie's feisty grandmother Bea, have come along for moral support, staying with Amina and her family. But Charlie is also hiding someone from her past. And then there's Samira, the Bennis's devoted housekeeper for many decades. Hers is the biggest secret of all – and the one that strikes at the very heart of the family. As things begin to unravel behind the ancient walls of the medina, the 4 women are soon caught in a web of lies, clandestine deals and shocking confessions.

Normal people by Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life – a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel.

Bruny by Heather Rose

How far would your government go? A right-wing US president has withdrawn America from the Middle East and the UN. Daesh has a thoroughfare to the sea and China is Australia's newest ally. When a bomb goes off in remote Tasmania, Astrid Coleman agrees to return home to help her brother before an upcoming election. But this is no simple task. Her brother and sister are on either side of politics, the community is full of conspiracy theories, and her father is quoting Shakespeare. Only on Bruny does the world seem sane. Until Astrid discovers how far the government is willing to go.

The bandit queens by Parini Schroff

In the 5 years since her husband's disappearance, Geeta has become accustomed to a solitary life; it is difficult to make friends when your entire village believes you're a witch who murdered your husband. And since she can't convince anyone that she didn't murder him, she figures she might as well use her fearsome reputation to protect herself. But when other women in the village decide that they, too, want to rid themselves of their abusive husbands, Geeta's reputation becomes a double-edged sword as she unwittingly becomes the go-to consultant for village husband-disposal. Unfortunately, Geeta finds that even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry, and the women find themselves caught in a web of their own making.

Honeybee by Craig Silvey

Late in the night, 14-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The 2 see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other.

The Paris library by Janet Skeslin Charles

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor's mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them.

Oh William by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret -- one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us.

Olive again by Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she comes to terms with the changes in her own existence and in those around her. Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son and his family to accept him, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine – and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life.

A gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. When, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden in the trunk of the car. Together, they have hatched a different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction to the city of New York.

Redhead by the side of the road by Anne Tyler

Micah Mortimer isn't the most polished person you'll ever meet. His numerous sisters and in-laws regard him oddly but very fondly, but he has his ways and means of navigating the world. He measures out his days running errands for work, maintaining an impeccable cleaning regime and going for runs. He is content with the steady balance of his life. But then the order of things starts to tilt. His woman friend Cassia tells him she's facing eviction because of a cat. And when a teenager shows up at Micah's door claiming to be his son, Micah is confronted with another surprise he seems poorly equipped to handle.

The albatross by Nina Wan

The albatross is just about the rarest thing in golf – two shots on a par 5. A hole-in-one, anywhere on the course, is just a random event, a fluke. It’s not your own doing. But an albatross . . . It’s a thing of beauty. When Primrose makes an unplanned detour into a dilapidated suburban golf course called Whistles, she has no idea that the past will come rushing back at her. At 36, her marriage is teetering from illness and infidelity. A visit from her commanding brother-in-law looms ominously on the horizon. And by a twist of fate, Peter, the boy she loved twenty years ago, is now living across the street. Primrose cannot escape the increasing demands to make a choice, between her first love and her marriage, duty and desire, fear and freedom. 

The bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Peggy and Maude are twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her. When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands.

The dictionary of lost words by Pip Williams

In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. She begins to collect words for another dictionary...

The yield by Tara June Winch

Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered.  August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land -- a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.

Still life by Sarah Winman

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view. Evelyn's talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses' mind that will shape the trajectory of his life.

Non-fiction

Phosphorescence: on awe, wonder & things that sustain you when the world goes dark by Julia Baird

How we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness, which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become better at knowing what brings us contentment, wellbeing and joy. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. And more than that, when our world goes dark, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom?

No friend but the mountains : writing from Manus prison by Behrouz Boochani

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. He has been there ever since. People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival.

Furious hours : murder, fraud and the last trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Willie Maxwell was a Baptist reverend in Alabama; he also happened to be a serial killer. Between 1970 and 1977, his two wives and brother all died under suspicious circumstances but, Maxwell escaped justice for years. Then, the daughter of his third wife perished. At the funeral, the victim's uncle shot the Reverend dead in a church full of witnesses - and was subsequently acquitted of the murder. 

Blue ribbons, bitter bread by Susannah De Vries

Jocie Loch was an extraordinary Australian. She had the inspired courage that saved many hundreds of Jews and Poles in World War II, the compassion that made her a self-trained doctor to tens of thousands of refugees, the incredible gift that took her close to death in several theatres of war, and the dedication to truth and justice that shone forth in her own books.

Wifedom by Anna Funder

Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, award-winning writer Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own. When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it's a revelation. Eileen O'Shaughnessy's literary brilliance shaped Orwell's work and her practical common sense saved his life. But why-and how-was she written out of the story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell's private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer-and what it is to be a wife. 

Best wishes by Richard Glover

Do you hate gambling ads, pre-ripped jeans and pedestrians who walk five abreast? Do you also have a problem with plastic-wrapped fruit, climate-change deniers and take-away sandwiches priced at $14.95?And, most of all, do you think the world would be a better place if people got back their sense of humour? Here's proof you are not alone. Heartfelt and hilarious, serious but sly, Best Wishes is the Encyclopedia of 'Can Do Better'. It's a plea for a better world - one wish at a time.

The land before avocado by Richard Glover

A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be - and just how far we have come. 'It was simpler time'. We had more fun back then'. 'Everyone could afford a house'. There's plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like? In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It's a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and, now and then, surprisingly appealing. It's the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late '60s and early '70s.

Talking to my country by Stan Grant

In July 2015, as the debate over Adam Goodes being booed at AFL games raged and got ever more heated and ugly, Stan Grant wrote a  piece for The Guardian that went viral, shared over 100,000 times on social media. His was a personal, passionate and powerful response to racism in Australian and the sorrow, shame, anger and hardship of being an Indigenous man. 'We are the detritus of the brutality of the Australian frontier', he wrote, 'We remained a reminder of what was lost, what was taken, what was destroyed to scaffold the building of this nation's prosperity.' 

The queen is dead by Stan Grant

The Queen reigned for seventy years. She came to the throne at the height of Empire and died with the world at a tipping point. What comes next after the death of what Stan Grant calls 'the last white Queen'? Taking us on a journey through the world's fault lines, from the war in Ukraine, the rise of China, the identity wars, the resurgence of white supremacy, and the demand that Black Lives Matter, The queen is dead is a full-throated, impassioned argument on the necessity for an end to monarchy in Australia, the need for a Republic, and what needs to be done to address and redress the pain and sorrow and humiliations of the past. 

Spare by Prince Harry

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling--and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Raised by wolves: a memoir with bite by Jess Ho

Growing up Cantonese in the racist outer suburbs was hard enough for Jess Ho but add in a dysfunctional family who only made peace over food, and it was clear that a normal life was never on the menu. Jess emerged from childhood with a major psychological complex and a kick-arse palate, traits that would help them fit right into the messy world of Melbourne's food scene. In hospitality, Jess found a new family of outsiders who shared their lust for life and appetite for destruction. 

The happiest man on earth by Eddie Jaku

Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on earth'.

Emotional female by Yumiko Kadota

Yumiko Kadota was every Asian parent's dream- model student, top of her class in medical school and on track to becoming a surgeon. A self-confessed workaholic, she regularly put 'knife before life'. But if the punishing hours in surgery weren't hard enough, she also faced challenges as a young female surgeon navigating a male-dominated specialty. She was regularly left to carry out complex procedures without senior surgeons' oversight; she was called all sorts of things, from 'emotional' to 'too confident'; and she was expected to work a relentless, on-call roster. Emotional Female is her account of what it was like to train in the Australian public hospital system, and what made her walk away.

When breath becomes air by Paul Kalanithi

A memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question. What makes a life worth living? At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. 

Funkytown by Paul Kennedy

It is 1993: a serial killer is loose on the streets of Frankston, Victoria. The community is paralysed by fear and a state's police force and national media come to find a killer. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Paul Kennedy is searching for something else entirely. He is focused on finishing school, getting drafted into the AFL and falling in love. So much can change in a year.

The remarkable Mrs. Reibey by Grantley Kieza

The extraordinary story of Australia's first female entrepreneur and the most powerful woman in colonial history. As a teenage orphan in England in 1791, Mary Reibey was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. Due to her 'tender age', Mary was spared the hangman's noose and sentenced to seven years transportation to the colony of New South Wales. With the odds stacked against her, Mary went on to become Australia's first female business tycoon and the richest woman in the colony, founding the Bank of New South Wales (Westpac).

The trauma cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife... But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less.

The erratics by Vickie Laveau-Harvey

When her mother is hospitalised unexpectedly, Vicki travels to her parents' isolated ranch home in Alberta, Canada, to help her father. Her mother has always been mentally unstable, but for years camouflaged her delusions and unpredictability. Vicki's father, who has been systematically starved and kept virtually a prisoner in his own home, begins to realise what has happened to him and embarks upon plans of his own to combat his wife.

Wandering through life by Donna Leon

From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals and selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Donna Leon has long been open to adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humour, Wandering Through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

One hundred years of dirt by Rick Morton

Social mobility is not a train you get to board after you've scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine, with nothing but a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress. Violence, treachery and cruelty run through the generational veins of Rick Morton's family. A horrific accident thrusts his mother and siblings into a world impossible for them to navigate, a life of poverty and drug addiction One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Y

Becoming by Michelle Obama

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private. A deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations.

A question of age: women, aging and the forever self by Jacinta Parsons

Grappling with ageing is one of the most confronting elements of being a woman. When we become invisible, when we lose our sexual currency, when we lose that elasticity in our skin, when our bodies soften and change, when our perceived 'value' to society dramatically falls, when our notion of self-worth takes a radical shift. What do we do when our outside self doesn't match our inside self? So how do we adjust our perceptions of getting older? What does it mean to age as a woman? How do we adjust our thinking about being in the world? What is our currency now?

Dark emu: Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture by Bruce Pascoe

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers suggesting that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia’s past is required.

Any ordinary day by Leigh Sales

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories - and a terrifying brush with her own mortality - sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event.

Storytellers by Leigh Sales

Highly respected ABC anchor, bestselling author and hit podcaster Leigh Sales interviews the cream of Australian journalists about their craft - how (and why) they bring us the stories that inform our lives. In this book, Leigh turns her interviewing skills onto her own profession, those usually asking the questions: the journalists. Sales takes us on a tour of the profession, letting the leaders in their field talk direct to us about how they get their leads, survive in war zones, write a profile, tell a story with pictures, and keep the show on the road. 

Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected. She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate; had no school records and no medical records as her father didn't believe in doctors or hospitals. At sixteen, Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents.

The Jane Austen remedy by Ruth Wilson

As she approached the age of 70, Ruth Wilson began to have recurring dreams about losing her voice. Unable to dismiss her feelings of unexplainable sadness, she made the radical decision to retreat from her conventional life with her husband to a small sunshine-yellow cottage in the Southern Highlands where she lived alone for the next decade. Ruth had fostered a lifelong love of reading, and from the first encounter with Pride and Prejudice, she had looked to Jane Austen's heroines as her models for the sort of woman she wanted to become. As Ruth settled into her cottage, she resolved to re-read Austen's novels. And as she read, she began to reclaim her voice. 

More recommended reading

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